Federal funds play a critical role in supporting early learning in Ohio--about 20% of Ohio's child care funding comes from the federal Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Congress is currently considering an increase to that fund, which could significantly benefit Ohio's littlest learners. This week, Groundwork Ohio's Executive Committee sent letters to the Ohio Congressional delegation expressing our support of increasing CCDBG funding by $5 billion from last year's appropriation. This would allow Ohio to further invest in meeting the state's quality mandates and expand access to more families who could benefit from high-quality publicly funded child care. We will also be meeting with members of the Ohio delegation before Congress's August recess to further discuss the importance of federal investments in early learning. We encourage you to elevate this message with your US Representative (look up your representative here) and Senators Brown and Portman by sending a letter expressing your support for increased CCDBG funding. Simply download our letter template, fill in the highlighted fields, and drop it in the mail!
State Budget Deliberations Continue in Conference Committee
At the end of June, the Ohio legislature passed an interim state operating budget after lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on the final budget before the June 30th deadline. While there is disagreement among some hot-button issues in the budget, child care and children's services remain areas of agreement within the budget proposal. The House and Senate hope to reach an agreement by the new July 17th deadline. We will keep you updated with any progress in the interim.
Share Insights on Local Initiatives in Your Community
The National Collaborative for Infants & Toddlers, funded by the Pritzker Children’s Initiative (PCI), is conducting a survey of communities (cities, towns, counties, regions) in order to form a better understanding of the landscape of local initiatives aimed at improving child and family outcomes prenatally through age three. Ultimately, the information collected from this survey will be used to form a map of Prenatal to Three Initiatives across the US and to add to a growing repository of model policies and programs available through the NCIT Online Solutions Center.
