Ann Walker is Co-Chair of Smart Start's Professional Coordinating Committee Co-Chair, Executive Administrator of Child Development and Family Council of Centre County, Inc. and Child Care Information  Services of Centre County, and a Centre County resident of Harris Township in Boalsburg for over 30 years where she "raised two fine sons and in 2011 became a Grandparent to a baby girl for the first time!"

March 10^th, 2011

This morning I sat in on a conference call with Acting Deputy Secretary Todd Klunk to hear about PA's Early Learning Programs in the Governor's State Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2011-2012 on behalf of Child Development and Family Council of Centre County, Inc.'s PA Pre-Counts Grants for programs in State College and Philipsburg.  Also on the call were State Head Start grantees [HSSAP].

This is a momentous moment in time for the early learning and early education community.  Acting Deputy Secretary Todd Klunk used words to describe the impact of this budget for young children and their families as being "global".  He characterized our new Governor Corbett as having proposed a budget that averts a huge crisis for our field and the people we serve.  Governor Corbett has clearly honored his campaign promises  with positive and firm support of the wide variety of services captured by programs offered in both the Department of Education and the Department of Public Welfare and of course our very own Office of Child Development and Early Learning [OCDEL] which is like a safety net spanning the services and issues that occupy each of these major offices of government.  His budget proposal is indicative of his commitment.

For the most part, all of our programs have been "flat funded" from the money finally allocated for the 2010-2011 Budget Year which we are now completing.  Contracts are beginning their renewal process with a short turn around time given the late submission of the new year's budget, an option for any Governor from a new party.  As someone who operates an agency and programs outside of the state or county government; but who does so hand in hand with these entities through grants and good stewardship of dollars and services in our local community, I have been extremely impressed with the level of thoughtfulness and forward thinking the government offices and their employees have engaged in to be ready to implement this budget proposal.  Grass roots involvement has been a hallmark, with the diversity of our State always represented and voices of parent/caretakers always sought.  Everyone within and outside of government has shared in some loss and mostly security or gains.  In addition evidence based programs with emerging outcome data clearly document our enormous success.

I believe these factors made our programs easy to support.

So, what happened in a nutshell?

·         Pre-K Counts is flat funded- same amount of money for the same population of children

·         Head Start is flat funded

·         Early Intervention for preschool children [3-5's], a mandated service, has a small increase to compensate for growth in numbers of children and replace some ARRA money that will end in this new budget year.

·         Early Intervention for children birth to three, a mandated service, is also flat funded for the new year.

·         Child Care Works [subsidized child care] is flat funded and due to wise fiscal spending with respect to the ARRA monies and Discretionary Dollars that were set aside, we will preserve our 65,000 slots for Low Income families and their children that we had this past year.  With a state wide waitlist for 11,000 children, OCDEL and our new Governor felt preserving subsidy slots was critical.

·         Nurse Family Partnership, an evidence based family support program that is recognized in the Federal Health Care Reform Act was flat funded, as well.

·         We lost one program- the Parent Child Home Literacy based program which served 1500 children this year and will be phased out by 7-1-11.  Acting Deputy Secretary Klunk spoke gravely about the impact for children, families and the professionals who carried out the program.  It was not an evidence based program.  NOTE: With Health Care Reform money, it is the state's intent to pilot some new parent-home visiting programs in select counties that will meet the Federal requirements for evidence based results.

What comes Next?

Now that the budget is proposed, there will be legislative and community discussion and negotiations before a final budget is endorsed and approved.

What do we do Now?

                We tell our new Governor THANK YOU for standing with us on what we believe keeps Pennsylvania at work and keeps its children on a path to competence and success.  Our Early Learning and Early Education programs enable Pennsylvania to invest in its economy and the education of its citizenry today, as well as in the future.  Quality pays!  Investing in our children, pays.  And it creates a community that can do better and will do better with the tools it receives.

                Next, we keep sharing with everyone- our neighbors, our relatives, our institutions, our business community, our governing bodies locally, state-wide and nationally -what we believe to be important about what we do and the changes for the good that are created and realized.  We continue to expand our networks and extend our collaborations.  As a community of helping hands and with a shared vision that as a community we can together raise our families to great heights we do our work and tell our stories.

                Finally, we must be mindful that many services, programs and people will fare far worse in this 2011-2012 Budget and we must work together to help as we can.  We need to learn about all the programs that meet the needs of our own families and professionals and do whatever we can to help shore them up.  As communities we will be making hard choices and difficult decisions and stretching resources to make up for whatever losses come in other places.

Are we up to it?

                I say yes we are.  We have had a wonderful series of years with unprecedented support begun before the last administration, brought to fruition during Governor Rendell's terms of office and now carried forward to what I am sure will be new heights in a new administration.  We have the tools, the resources and the knowledge to tell our stories in our communities.  This we can do, each of us, along with our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, foster children, and your next door neighbors' kids.  Many years ago, when Smart Start - Centre County was just becoming the leader it is, we agreed to a vision that around the kitchen tables of Centre County residents all across our diverse geography and in all five or our school districts, we hoped to have the conversation center around what was good for our children and how we could make sure that all of Centre County's children gained equal access to their opportunity to succeed and exceed in today's global world.