“Children Learning, Parents Earning, Communities Growing"State Legislation Upcoming Legislative Hearings (click here to be directed to CalChannel): Last Updated: September 10, 2018 Friday, August 31st, upon adjournment of the legislative day, the final recess for the session 2017-18 began. September 30 is the last day for the governor to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature before September 1. Bill enacted on or before this date become effective on January 1, 2019. A couple pieces of highlighted legislation worthy of your consider include: AB 60 (Santiago) - RECOMMEND: SUPPORT. We know that families are more stable in their employment when they have stable child care. It is burdensome to require parents already deemed income eligible for child care to continually report and submit documents to caseworkers that in no way ought to jeopardize their eligibility. However, with our current set of regulations and requirements, parents that fail to provide ongoing paperwork attesting to their income are put in that position; and the agencies that fail to show collection of ongoing income documentation are in threat of being written up during an audit and/or performance review as a condition of their contract. AB 60 implements the top recommendation of the California Department of Social Services and Department of Education Interagency Child Care Taskforce. The California Welfare Directors Association (CWDA) and the child care community also support AB 60. It has bipartisan support and has passed unanimously out of Senate Appropriations, and by consent in the Senate and the Assembly. STATUS: ENROLLED AB 605 (Mullin) - RECOMMEND: SUPPORT. This bill will allow a much needed birth-to-entering -first-grade license option for day care centers. Further, this bill will allow the Department of Social Services (DSS) to create an integrated child care facility license as an additional option that providers can choose when applying for or renewing their facility license. The addition of an integrated birth through entering first grade facility license option will allow child care and preschool providers the ability to implement the best practices around continuity of care when transitioning children, teachers and peers between age-specific classrooms. This integrated facility license option will also allow providers with federal contracts to more fully meet continuity of care regulations. Additionally, AB 605 will allow child care providers the ability to better manage their school year enrollment so that their facility can reach maximum utilization, thus serving more children and families. A single license option will reduce the administrative burden on severely underfunded child care centers and DSS so that they can both focus on providing a safe and healthy environment for California's children. STATUS: ENROLLED AB 2626 (Mullin) - RECOMMEND: SUPPORT. This bill will ensure more families have access to subsidized child care and early learning throughout the state by extending key flexibilities and efficiencies, already provided to 13 counties, statewide to all applicable early learning contracts.Specifically, AB 2626 wouldexpand age eligibility and remove restrictions for children who can be served in a California State Preschool Program, increase the State Median Income eligibility threshold in order to expand the number of working families who are eligible for services, increase the eligibility timeframe in order to allow stability and continuity of services for children and families, increase the utilization of available funding by allowing providers stability and continuity of services of enrollment of children and families, offer better workforce stability and quality by providing staff development opportunities, and provide flexibility in funding adjustments to allow contractors to better utilize available funding. STATUS: ENROLLED November 6 is the General Election. November 30 is the last day "sine die" of the 2017-18 session.
The CAPPA Public Policy Committee and CAPPA staff review each piece of legislation and decide whether or not part or the entire bill could have an effect on subsidized child care, Alternative Payment Programs, low-income families, child care centers, CalWORKs, non-profits, business issues such as independent contractor issues, licensing, children, etc. If a bill is identified with an impact, the CAPPA board and public policy committee are asked to review the bill. Once reviewed and based on the approved policy principles a decision will be made for CAPPA to either support, oppose or remain neutral on a bill. Keep up-to-date on the bills that are important to our field with CAPPA's all new extensive bill tracking system. This database is updated daily. For the 2017-18 legislative session, The Assembly introduced 3,239 Assembly bills and the Senate introduced 1,490 Senate bills. To review legislation or to create your own tracking list, click here. Click here to access information and resources to help you follow the legislative process. Legislation with Fact Sheets, Coalition/Templates & Sign-On OpportunitiesIn the spirit of partnership and sharing, we will be supporting the field with legislative and advocacy information, background fact sheets and letter templates to communicate positions and/or to sign on as part of a broader coalition. Assembly Bills (AB) and Senate Bills (SB) that are being tracked are noted below. The bill link will take you to the page noting the most recent version of the bill along with bill history and bill analyses when available. As fact sheets and sample templates become available, they too will be hosted. Please email us if you would like to have a bill hosted here. To search for bills. click here. Assembly Bills (AB):
It is important that we as a field, are united and strong in our "asks". To that end, below are two considerations that we hope to see in all advocacy platforms that are put forth:
Legislative Resources:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
