THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605250564
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 69 lines
Officials in two Albemarle-area counties are watching wrangles in the General Assembly over whether to fund new Smart Start programs for 1996-97.
Dare and Bertie counties are among a dozen chosen earlier this month for expansion of the statewide program aimed to make sure children age 5 and under are healthy and nurtured.
The program is up and running among 24 partnerships in 32 counties, including Pasquotank, Hertford and Halifax. Washington County is one of 11 that received planning money last year and hope for full funding in 1996-97.
Supporters of the program say it has helped thousands of children find affordable day care and preventive medical attention since 1993. An independent audit earlier this year called the program ``successful'' and ``innovative.''
But Smart Start, the cornerstone of Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.'s administration, is a key political target as Republicans work to put Rep. Robin Hayes in the governor's mansion this fall. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives voted Friday to continue the existing Smart Start budget but not to expand the program.
Smart Start supporters expect the state Senate to include expansion money in its version of the budget. A committee from both houses will iron out any differences.
``We're hopeful that there will be an agreement on an expansion budget for next year,'' said David F. Walker, executive director of the North Carolina Partnership for Children, a nonprofit umbrella group for the state's Smart Start programs.
But the uncertainty of the issue left Smart Start supporters in Dare and Bertie counties with mixed feelings when they learned they had been picked for the program by the state partnership and the Department of Human Resources.
``We're happy that we were selected,'' said Loretta Michael, executive director of the Children and Youth Partnership for Dare County. ``We're waiting to see if we'll be funded.''
Bertie County Commissioner Patricia Ferguson said she learned her county could become a part of Smart Start two weeks ago. ``And I've been fighting ever since,'' she said.
About 100 Bertie residents and several hundred people from around the state joined Ferguson in Raleigh on Thursday for a rally supporting Smart Start. Michael and two other Dare officials also made the trip.
Hunt was at the event, along with Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight of Dare County and House Minority Leader Jim Black of Charlotte.
``I think it went extremely well,'' Ferguson said Friday. ``We had a chance to take with us some of the young people who would benefit from Smart Start funding.
``They're young children who are vulnerable. They have no way of protecting themselves . . . It's a political issue, and unfortunately our children are pawns.''
Dare and Bertie, whose social and economic populations are starkly different with Dare decidedly richer, have similar goals for the Smart Start program.
A brief summary of Dare's needs provided by the North Carolina Partnership for Children says 126 children are on a waiting list for subsidized day care in the county.
Bertie's information says that nearly one in four babies in the county is born to a single teen, the highest rate in the state. Only 38 percent of the county's children under 6 are served by day-care centers. And only half of Bertie's high school students graduate.
Those statistics are why Ferguson and other Bertie County residents are fighting for Smart Start funding.
Ferguson said she hopes the legislature will at least provide $125,000 in start-up funds to the latest round of counties in the Smart Start program, which is entering its fourth year.
``We're willing in Bertie County to take this one step at a time,'' Ferguson said. by CNB