07/08/2022
The legislation passed by the Senate, S2973, An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care, would establish a framework for delivering increased access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care to Massachusetts families, over the course of several years. The legislation would:
Expand access to child care subsidies, beginning with low-income families and then moving up the income scale. The bill would increase eligibility for child care subsidies over time from the current limit of 50% of SMI ($44,626/year for a family of 2, $65,626/year for a family of 4) to 125% of SMI ($111,565/year for a family of 2, $164,065/year for a family of 4);
Require parent fees for subsidized families to be affordable and updated at least every 5 years;
Create an additional operational funding stream that goes directly to providers to help them afford the cost of offering quality care, including higher pay for educators;
Reimburse providers based on quarterly enrollment rather than daily attendance to provide more predictable, reliable funding;
Require the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) to assess the true cost of quality care and then set reimbursement rates that adequately fund high-quality programs;
Require EEC to provide guidance for educator salaries to be commensurate with public school educators with similar education and training;
Allow providers who accept subsidies to offer discounts and scholarships to their educators and staff, which they have been prohibited from doing in the past;
Require a study with recommendations to the Legislature on how employers could provide more support to their workers' child care needs; and
Enact numerous provisions to address equity including data collection, language access, identifying and removing barriers to access, and establishing scholarships and loan forgiveness programs for early educators.
While An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care sets out a framework for expanding access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care, fulfilling the Common Start vision of a high-quality early education and childcare system that is truly affordable and accessible for all families in Massachusetts will require a sustained effort to fund that framework through the annual budget process and build on it over several years. The combination of this legislation and proposed new funding in the state budget currently being debated by a legislative conference committee, if the priorities of both chambers make it into the final FY23 budget, would represent a substantial step toward implementing this vision.
For full article click https://commonstartma.org/news/common-start-coalition-applauds-senate-passage-of-early-education-and-child-care-bill?link_id=3&can_id=3a30c83d2ced893880471fd4910f400f&source=email-great-news-senate-passes-early-education-and-child-care-bill-unanimously&email_referrer=email_1598878&email_subject=great-news-senate-passes-early-education-and-child-care-bill-unanimously
