THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512230370
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Some families with children enrolled in all-day Head Start programs will have to pay higher fees starting Jan. 1, unless the state attorney general's office intervenes.
Lawanna Dowden, director of Head Start programs at STOP - the organization that coordinates the program in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Franklin, Smithfield and Southampton County - said about 10 families of the 217 with children in the all-day program will have to pay more money under the new fee system.
The fee came about after Gov. George F. Allen moved the management of federal child-development block grants from the Virginia Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Development to the state Department of Social Services.
The move to Social Services puts the program under a different set of guidelines, one of which requires families to pay 10 percent of their gross income to help cover the costs of child care.
The purpose of the policy, according to Social Services, is to spread limited funds among more families and encourage personal responsibility.
Several lawmakers have complained about the fee, however, and the state attorney general's office is now reviewing the policy.
The basic Head Start program, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. is still free locally, but the extended care that runs from 12:30 to 6 p.m. will now have the 10 percent fee.
Dowden said parents are currently being charged on a sliding scale, according to how much they make. The new 10 percent fee will be less for a few parents, the same for others, and more for about 10 families. Those numbers are based are preliminary enrollment figures.
``It hasn't affected enrollment at all,'' Dowden said. ``It's still cheaper than regular day care. But when you're talking about people with limited resources, the impact is always major.'' by CNB