THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9512300359
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC SUNDQUIST, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
A plan to charge some poor families more to enroll children in government-run day-care has been shelved because the attorney general's office ruled that it would be illegal.
The new fee policy was to have been implemented Monday. It was proposed after the Allen administration moved responsibility for the day-care program, Head Start To Work, from one state agency to another.
The switch put the program under a new set of fee-for-service guidelines, one of which would have required families to pay 10 percent of their gross income to help cover the costs of child care.
Some state legislators complained about the change, however, and Attorney General Jim Gilmore's office intervened. A spokesman said yesterday that the fee policy would have violated state law.
Head Start To Work is an afternoon day-care program for young children who are enrolled in morning Head Start classes. It is designed to give low-income parents the opportunity to work all day.
Because of the way the Head Start fees are imposed locally, the new policy would have meant higher charges for only about 10 families out of 217 who have children in the afternoon program, said Lawanna Dowden. Dowden is director of Head Start at STOP, the organization that coordinates the program in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Franklin, Smithfield and Southampton County.
Locally, she said, a few families would have actually paid less under the proposed fee system. But on balance, the new fee would have hurt more families than it would have helped.
Though set aside for now, raised fees may return. Dowden said she expected the issue to be taken up by the General Assembly. by CNB