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To afford to live here, most families chose to have two parents work. To be able to work, parents need to know their children will be safe, engaged and nurtured. 

 

Moreover, we have growing evidence, including in Vermont, that strong early childhood education develops the social skills, self regulation, and pre literacy and pre math skills that make children successful in school. 

 

Caring for the youngest Vermonters yields generations of benefit for the state. 

 

We made strong progress in increasing our investment in early care and learning in Act 76.  This infusion brought critical capacity to the sector. We need to keep working. 

 

Rebecca thinks the payroll tax is a regressive way to fund this program, and wants us to explore funding of a more progressive tax base.

 

Act 76 also requires the state to individually verify the eligibility of every family for subsidy. 

 

Other places that have successfully done what we are trying to do manage these investments municipally, to ensure the right diversity and capacity of child care programming at the local level.

 

Done right, this reduces state overhead, helps providers manage enrollment, ensures the right mix of child cares to meet the needs of families, including family cares with flexible hours for families that don’t work on 9-5 schedules. 

 

This sector also continues to struggle with staffing, which is a function of low wages and lack of benefits. Rebecca sponsored H.630, which supports regionalization of certain functions in school districts, where scale is needed. 

 

Rebecca believes a similar regional approach could be used to support robust professional development and access to health care benefits for child care providers, but at a lower cost.