BRATTLEBORO — Given the number of discussions about Vermont's aging population, one would not expect an issue to be a shortage of child care for children from birth to age 5.
Yet advocates for policy change say that half of Vermont's infants and toddlers lack places - “slots,” in policy argot - in regulated child-care programs.
The problem doesn't stop with lack of slots, say experts. Overall, Vermont's child-care system is too expensive for many families and does not pay livable wages to its workers.
A bill to address these issues has just unanimously cleared the Vermont House of Representatives. It seeks to address the issues of space, affordability, and professional development in the state's child-care and early-learning systems.
The bill has since been referred to the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare.
According to a 2018 white paper published by Let's Grow Kids and the Vermont Commission on Women, families spend as much as 40 percent of their household income on child care.
Meanwhile, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017, child-care workers in Vermont earned a median wage of $12.71 an hour.
Chloe Learey, executive director of the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development, said that these wages don't match the level of education expected of child-care workers. The wages don't help pay the workers' students loans, either, she added.
Learey said that for some of the families her organization serves, child care costs as much as their mortgages.
Statewide organizations that focus on improving child care such as Let's Grow Kids and Building Bright Futures, along with local organizations such as the Winston Prouty Center, have characterized families' access to affordable child care as an economic issue.
Let's Grow Kids asserts on its website that “[t]imes have changed and, these days, most families in Vermont have to depend on two incomes in order to make ends meet.”
According to the nonprofit, “A stable child care situation allows working parents to retain their jobs and be productive at work. Lack of reliable child care has been shown to cause absenteeism and reduce productivity in the workplace.”
Multi-part strategy
The House Human Services committee crafted the bill as part of a multi-year strategy to address what is being referred to as the state's child-care crisis.
Rep. Kelly Pajala, I-Londonderry, who is serving her second year on the Human Services Committee, said the committee members started with five child-care bills, each with its own perspective. Each dealt with different aspects of the child-care system, she said.
What passed was H.531, which was intentionally crafted to be holistic, Pajala said, noting that the committee pulled the most important and achievable parts of each bill and “made them work in unison.”
According to Pajala, the committee agreed early in the policy-building process on what puzzle pieces needed to fit in order to make meaningful change in the whole system.
Committee members outlined common goals: increasing capacity, workforce development, and affordability.
“It made for a really robust discussion, because we were all working towards a common goal,” she said.
The legislation as passed by the House would:
• Invest $10.5 million in the child-care system, with most of the funds going toward child-care assistance and families' financial benefits.
• Widen the income-eligibility requirements and increase the number of low- and middle-income families eligible for child-care benefits.
For example, a family of four that earns $51,500 currently receives a child-care benefit of 15 percent. Under the proposed legislation, that benefit jumps to 50 percent.
• Increase the reimbursement rates for child-care providers.
• Provide student-loan repayment and scholarship programs for early educators.
• Invest in infrastructure and redesign technology related to the Child Care Financial Assistance Program (CCFAP).
Pajala said that in previous sessions, the committee had developed a good picture of the overall child-care crisis. What was different this session, she said, was that the committee had received more data to back up the anecdotal experiences of the witnesses who gave testimony.
She credited advocacy groups Let's Grow Kids and Building Bright Futures with providing the additional data.
A good step forward
Chloe Learey of the Winston Prouty Center said she believes that the bill represents progress in how the state supports child care as a whole rather than addressing just one piece at a time.
She contrasted the legislation to previous child-care bills and to the conversations she had with legislators five years ago.
“What impresses me about the bill is the financial assistance program to families to make child care more affordable,” she said. “And it [would be] a real benefit to a broader spectrum of families.”
She also praised the professional development aspects of the bill as well as the technology upgrades.
Learey feels, however, that H.513 would only be a start.
She hopes that the “initial investment leads to further investment in the system.”
“Investing in early childhood is part of a recognition that the child is part of a family,” she said. “And efforts aren't successful unless they surround the whole family.”
Learey noted that part of the bill includes a more than $300,000 investment in the Children's Integrated Services program, which offers families supports such as early intervention.
CIS is not just about child care but part of providing wraparound services for families, Learey said.
“Children are part of a whole family, and holding a whole family is part of getting this right,” she said.
Offering choices
Pajala said she is excited about all of H.531.
It's important for families to have choices when finding a place for their children, she said.
Pajala said that while most of the community's focus had centered on the child-care system that serves kids from birth to age 5, education needs to support children and their families in the years that follow.
Services are needed throughout a child's years in school and even when they attend after school programs.
Child-care centers are not just places where families drop off their children “to be watched” for the day, Pajala said.
Rather, it is about creating a holistic environment where children interact with one another and with adults, and where they have the opportunity to learn.
Pajala hopes the bill will ease the financial strain many working families experience when trying to pay for child care.
“Its about supporting families where they are,” she said. “Telling them to tough it out and work harder wasn't really the answer.”