THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270527
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 52 lines
Virginia restored $1 million this week in Head Start funding that was cut earlier this year by a now-defunct state council on day care.
The state funding for the Head Start expansion project brings the preschool program to 751 low-income children in 25 mostly rural localities that previously didn't have Head Start. The state provides $1 million in funding for the expansion project, while the federal government contributes $3.5 million.
The project was jeopardized this summer when Elizabeth Ruppert, the executive director of the Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Programs, terminated the state funding.
But officials from the state's Department of Social Services took another look at the program after the council went out of existence in June. The council was phased out by the General Assembly in a cost-cutting measure, with the state's Social Services taking on the council's duty of distributing grants for the improvement of child care.
This week, David Lett, who oversees Head Start grants in six states for the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, got word from Virginia that the funding would be restored.
``This shows a recognition of the value of Head Start by the governor and by the state of Virginia,'' Lett said. ``I'm glad they took a second look at it.''
The federal government has gradually taken on more of the financial burden of the project since it began in 1992. In that year, the federal government provided $800,000, and the state $3 million.
Both the governor and state Social Services officials have been under pressure by Head Start officials and child-care advocates to restore the $1 million in funds since word first surfaced last month that the expansion funding had been cut.
The expansion Head Start project serves children in 25 towns in programs located in the following 11 localities: Dinwiddie, Waverly, Halifax, Augusta County, Colonial Beach, Culpeper, Leesburg, Fredericksburg, Cumberland, Pittsylvania County and West Point.
The expansion project was the second Head Start program cut by the council but later restored by the state.
The other program, called the Head Start State Collaboration Project - brings the state $750,000 in federal grants over the next five years.
Ruppert wrote a letter in June terminating that program as well, saying the collaboration between the state and the federal government was ``antithetical'' to state sovereignty, and that Head Start programs impose a liberal agenda on children.
But state Social Services officials said last month that the letter was written in error. The state met the deadline to apply for those funds last month. by CNB