ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 14, 1996 TAG: 9603140067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
With little fanfare, the 1996 General Assembly dealt a final, fatal blow to a state council on child care that already had been crippled by the Allen administration.
During this session, the assembly passed a bill introduced by Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, that abolished the Virginia Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Programs, established nearly a decade ago under former Gov. Gerald Baliles.
The council was founded in the late 1980s to plan, coordinate and evaluate all state child day-care and early child-development programs and to administer a federal child-care development block grant.
Most of the grant money - about 75 percent - was used to provide child-care subsidies to the working poor. Twenty-five percent was used for child-care enhancement initiatives.
"There are so many councils out there, so much overhead in this area," said Bill Flanagan, Cox's legislative aide. "The Cox bill was designed to make sure we don't waste money."
Elizabeth Ruppert, the council's executive director, said she supported the council's abolishment - even though it eliminates her job.
"I support it because it's streamlining government," she said. "It's saving the state a minimum of $800,000 a year in general funds."
The council, until the 1995-96 fiscal year, had received that amount in state funding to cover administrative costs.
Allen appointed Ruppert council director in July 1994. "Anyone who accepted an appointment from him accepted his goal, and we came in to work for his goal," Ruppert said.
Allen's strike force on governmental reform recommended two years ago that the council be abolished, one of a number of recommendations to improve government efficiency and reduce costs. Cox introduced a bill during the 1995 General Assembly to abolish the council and shift its function to the state Department of Social Services.
The bill failed. The council survived, if in name only. The General Assembly did not provide the council with any general fund money for administrative costs. The council's staff of 14 was reduced to four, all federally funded positions.
And last summer, what couldn't be done legislatively was done administratively. The council, with Allen's blessing, contracted with the state Department of Social Services to manage the child-development block grant funds, taking away the council's primary function. The council also moved into department quarters.
"For all intents and purposes, [the council] died then," said Mary Ellen Verdu of Salem, who headed the council from 1992 to 1994. "I'd rather see it dead than live like it has."
The council has $17.7 million in block-grant funds to last until Oct. 1. It will be abolished July 1, but the Department of Social Services will continue to administer the money.
One of the council's initial goals was to establish child care as more than a baby-sitting service, said Peg Spangenthal, public policy chairwoman for the Virginia Association for Early Childhood Education.
The council helped "blur the lines between what a lot of people saw as child care, meaning custodial care, and early childhood education," she said. "Child care of children outside of their own families was really early childhood education. And it deserved its own professional status."
The council provided scholarships for child-care providers, gave small stipends here and there - "helped the providers feel very supported and as though there was the intent and obvious motion to improve the quality of child care," Spangenthal, of Richmond, said.
Without the council, "there won't be this central piece that's going to be a focal point of moving forward on child-care issues. I see us taking several steps backward."
When the council moved under the Department of Social Services' umbrella last year, child-care professionals and advocates were concerned that its mission would be lost. They pointed to last year's fiasco involving low-income parents who had their children in all-day Head Start programs.
Shifting the council's management of block-grant funding to the Social Services Department meant that the portion of those funds used to subsidize child care for Head Start families had to adhere to the same guidelines as other child-care subsidies. The guidelines require recipients to pay 10 percent of their gross income.
Parents protested. The department, on recommendation of the attorney general's office, dropped the plan to charge the families. Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, introduced a budget amendment at this past session prohibiting the Department of Social Services from ever charging fees to Head Start families who fall below the federal poverty level. The amendment passed.
Walker Meslang, legislative coordinator for Sen. Stanley Walker, D-Norfolk - chairman of the Commission on Early Childhood and Child Day Care Programs, a legislative body - said the council's abolishment doesn't mean an end to child-care interests. In the future, possibly under a different administration, the council or something similar could resurface.
"It's unfortunate that [the council's abolishment] happened," Meslang said. "But I think you are going to see child day care again be brought to the forefront in time, simply because in the days that we live, with both parents needing to work, child day care is becoming more and more important to more and more people.
"It's not an issue that's dead in the water."
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