ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512100006
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
SIX LEGISLATORS are reviewing an Allen administration action that requires parents - most of them living at or below the federal poverty level - to pay 10 percent of their gross income, ``circumventing what we had thought we were doing.''
The Virginia attorney general's office is reviewing a new state requirement that families who receive government subsidies for all-day Head Start programs pay 10 percent of their gross income to help cover the cost.
Mark Miner, spokesman for the office, said Friday that six House Appropriations Committee members raised a concern that the fee was not authorized.
This summer, Gov. George Allen shifted the management of federal child development block grant funds from the Virginia Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Development to the state Department of Social Services.
The block grant funds still come through the child care council, which contracts with the social services department to administer them.
State officials said that because of budget cuts, the council no longer had enough staff to administer the funds, which are used in part to provide full-day Head Start services for families.
But the move put funding under new guidelines that require parents - most of them living at or below the federal poverty level - to pay 10 percent of their gross income toward the cost.
Last week, six legislators wrote to Elizabeth Ruppert - executive director of the child care council - asking that the council consider delaying the 10 percent payment until "the issue can be debated by the public in the 1996 General Assembly."
The legislators wrote that the General Assembly had specified that child development block grant funds be spent as outlined in a plan that the child care council had submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
That plan specifies that, in general, families with children enrolled in the Head Start program are not required to pay a fee, the legislators wrote. There is no indication that the plan was formally amended.
"Therefore, the change that Head Start parents tell us your agency intends to make is in direct violation of legislative intent," the legislators wrote.
The Allen administration's action appears to "circumvent what we had thought we were doing," said Del. Vic Thomas, D-Roanoke, who signed the letter with four other Democrats and Republican Pete Giesen of Augusta County.
Ruppert referred their letter to the attorney general's office on Thursday, Miner said.
Thomas said legislators were assured during the last General Assembly session that the council could manage the federal funds, though its staff had been reduced to four.
"What we are trying to do is to get child care for people," he said. "Most of these people are not on welfare. But this is going to get them on" welfare.
Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, in a Nov. 29 letter to Ruppert, also expressed concern that the fee requirement had not been properly authorized. Woodrum, a lawyer, wrote that he had examined the child care council's contract with the Department of Social Services and found nothing that authorized the department to charge fees.
Woodrum plans to propose legislation next year to prohibit the department from charging the 10 percent payment.
Ruppert and social services administrators have said the 10 percent payment would mean the state would pay less per client, freeing up money to serve others.
The 10 percent payment has been a source of controversy since October, when parents were notified that they would have to begin paying for a service that had been free. The fee requirement initially was to be implemented Oct. 1. But after parents - many of them living on limited incomes - and Head Start teachers and administrators protested, that date was moved back to Jan. 1.
Shifting the funding to the Department of Social Services also threw some parents out of the income eligibility range. When the funding was under the council's management, families earning 75 percent of the state median income or below qualified for the subsidy. Under the Department of Social Services, that dropped to 50 percent.
The median income for a family of four is $47,732. So under the new guidelines, a family of four with an income of $23,866 or less would qualify for the subsidy. Previously, a family of four with an income of $35,799 would have qualified.
Members of the Virginia Head Start Association said at a meeting Friday in Roanoke that Head Start families and administrators across the state have joined a movement against the fee requirement.
"It's been a major accomplishment for [Head Start] parents," said Katie Weddington, supervisor of family services and parent involvement for Roanoke's Total Action Against Poverty.
"They have fought for what they believe in."
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