Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 2, 1995 TAG: 9511020059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A federal block grant covered the cost. The grant is for low-income parents who work or are in school and need a full day of Head Start, a program for disadvantaged preschoolers that typically operates half-days.
The block grant money had been administered by the Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Programs, a state agency.
But now the funds are administered through the state Department of Social Services, under guidelines that require the Cottons to hand over 10 percent of their gross income to help cover the cost.
"We are pinching pennies as it is," Cotton, a member of the Head Start Policy Council, said at a news conference Wednesday. The council represents 700 Head Start families in the Roanoke Valley.
A bill was introduced during the last General Assembly session to dismantle the Council on Child Day Care. The bill - patterned after a recommendation of Gov. George Allen's strike force on governmental reform - proposed to abolish the council and shift its functions to the Department of Social Services.
The bill passed the House of Delegates but died in the Senate Finance Committee.
This summer, Allen, in part, did what the state legislature would not. He instructed the Department of Social Services to take over some of the council's work - administering federal child development block grant funds.
The council had used a portion of block grant funds to subsidize full-day child care - called "wrap-around" funding - for parents who had children at certain Head Start centers across the state. About 1,250 families statewide, an estimated 100 in the Roanoke Valley, received wrap-around funding.
Shifting administration of the block grant to the Department of Social Services meant the funds had to adhere to new guidelines.
The funding was placed with other child care subsidies under the department's Fee System Child Day Care Services, which provides working low-income families with financial assistance for child care. All sources of subsidy funding under the fee system program require a 10 percent deduction from recipients' gross income. The subsidy funding kicks in after the deduction.
The new requirement, which took effect Oct. 1, will take about $150 from the Cotton family's monthly income, Mitzi Cotton said. The family, she said, cannot afford it.
"No offense to the Department of Social Services, but most parents would like to stay away from their system," said Cotton, who works part time at First Baptist Church's child development program and is pursuing a degree in childhood education at Virginia Western Community College. Head Start encourages parents off the welfare rolls and away from dependency on public assistance.
"Unfortunately, without any choice, we were forced into their system - the very system we were trying to get away from. Everybody is trying to make it - going to school, furthering our education - ahead of welfare reform.
"And this comes. What is the message?''
Elizabeth Ruppert, director of the state Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Programs, said Wednesday that the council was faced with several challenges after this year's General Assembly session. The state legislature provided no general fund money for the council.
As a result, the council staff dropped from 14 to four. The council could no longer handle the workload of administering the block grant funding, Ruppert said.
Twenty Roanoke Valley families have been told that under new guidelines, they are no longer eligible for the wrap-around program. Some parents exceeded income guidelines - 50 percent of the median income or below. The median income for a family of four is $47,732.
One Roanoke family was found to have an annual income of almost $41,000, Ruppert said.
For the 1994-95 fiscal year, the Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Programs had appropriated $3.2 million for wrap-around Head Start funding statewide. That amount has been increased to $4.3 million for the 1995-96 fiscal year to increase the number of centers offering all-day Head Start programs, Ruppert said.
"This [Allen] administration has been really bullish on Head Start," Ruppert said. "We have funded them very generously."
But Cotton, who this year also has a 3-year-old in Head Start, wonders how her family will make ends meet with 10 percent taken off the top of their already limited income.
"The parents have every right to file a class-action suit against the state and are in the process of seeking legal counsel to do just that," she said. "Ten percent of family income going to child care is outrageous, especially if it is a family living below the poverty guidelines."
by CNB