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Greetings!
There really wasn't much to report on the last couple of weeks, so you haven't heard much from me. However, that has all changed! Lots of things happening at the Capitol and lots coming up!
The House Republicans released a 519 page omnibus bill (this bill takes a lot of old policy and budget bills and rolls them into one big bill) on June 2nd. House Republicans spent much of Thursday caucusing the bill, which is a two-year budget. Late Thursday afternoon, Speaker Paulsen said his caucus is unified on the legislation, and also has unified support from Senate Republicans and the Governor's Office.
The proposal calls for a budget of $5.99 billion in the first fiscal year, and a $5.84 billion budget in the second fiscal year
The bill would allot a two percent allowable growth increase to public school district budgets for fiscal year 2013. There will be no change in the coming fiscal year. The State Voluntary Preschool Program will remain in place. However, the bill reduces the amount spent on the preschool program. Currently, each preschool pupil's education is funded at 60 percent of what a public school elementary or secondary school student's is. Republicans have lowered it to 30 percent or from $3529 to $1764 per four year old. A little ridiculous to think a quality program can be delivered with this little funding amount!
The bill does reinstate several million for Shared Visions. In the original Education Appropriations bill, the Republicans cut Shared Visions program in half. Here is a chart to compare the Senate, House and Governor's original funding for Education compared to what is in the Omnibus bill. Funding for Early Childhood Iowa remains the same as what was in the first budget proposals.
The House Republicans have placed a summary of the bill on their website. It is only 57 pages! The House plans to run the bill through committee on Monday and debate the bill on Tuesday. Initial reaction from the Senate Democrats is that the bill is dead on arrival.
As for their part, the Senate Democrats are holding a series of budget hearings the week of June 6th. The goal is to inform Iowans on the impact of the significant points of disagreement between Senate Democratic proposals and those of Governor Branstad and House Republicans.Here is the schedule:
Education Budget Listen and Learn - Monday, June 6th at 10AM in room 116 of the Capitol Health and Human Services Budget Listen and Learn - Tuesday, June 7th at 9AM in room 116 of the Capitol Economic Growth Budget Listen and Learn - Wednesday, June 8th, time and room TBA Administration and Regulation Budget Listen and Learn - Thursday, June 9 at 10AM in room 22 of the Capitol Agriculture and Natural Resources Budget Listen and Learn - Friday, June 10th, time and room TBA You are encouraged to attend! If you can't attend, there are still ways to make your voice heard. The Senate Democrats want to hear from you: You can share your comments and concerns with them by posting a comment on this page. Just scroll to the bottom of the page to find the comment form. You can also call Governor Branstad at (515) 281-5211 and tell him you oppose extreme cuts to health/human services and early childhood programs!
Take time to contact your Representative and Senator and tell them the same message!
Let us not forget about Governor Branstad. For his part, the Governor is embarking on a 43 city tour to promote his budget plan (the omnibus).
Branstad's office said a full schedule of his tour will be released in the coming days. Click here to find out the schedule for next week. Please consider attending with a group of your friends and/or family members and tell the Governor that extreme cuts to early childhood programs are unacceptable!!!!
I don't know how much will be accomplished next week but until the session is over, we need to remain loud and make sure our voices are heard! We need to be the voice of babies, toddlers, young children and their families!
Hang in there! Thank you, Sheila |
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Federal Budget
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Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge Grants
Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge, mirrors previous Early Learning Challenge Fund (ELCF) proposals and includes a provision that along with increasing and coordinating standards, workforce development and systems, states must also increase access to high-quality early childhood programs. The competition will be similar to the 2010 Race to the Top grant process, but grant criteria will be unique to early childhood. Feedback Period: The administration must commit these dollars before December 31, 2011, and therefore, the formal comment period has been waived. However, DOE and DHHS are requesting feedback on the competition and you can post directly to this moderated website: http://www.ed.gov/blog/2011/05/rtt-early-learning-challenge/.
Feel free to add your thoughts on the competition such as the type of criteria that should be considered.
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Bills of Interest
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SF 525 - Reorganizing the state mental health system in Human Services Committee. -passed Senate on 4/20.
SF 404 - -An act relating to health information technology. Passed Senate March 15th.
SF 295 - An Act relating to donation of newborn umbilical cord blood. Subcommittee, Bolkcom, Boettger, and Jochum. Passed Senate on March 14th.
SF 31 - An Act increasing the amount of the earned income tax credit and including retroactive applicability provisions. Passed out of subcommittee on 2/10.
SF 113 - pay day loan institutions - reducing interest rate to 36%. Passed Subcommittee 2/24. On to full Committee
SF 508 - An Act relating to state and local financial matters by revising certain appropriations and appropriating federal funds made available from federal block grants and other non state sources, allocating portions of federal block -passed both Houses
HF 645 - An Act relating to the funding of, the operation of, and appropriation of moneys to the college student aid commission, the department for the blind, the department of education.
HF 649 - An Act relating to and making appropriations for health and human services and including other related provisions and appropriations, and including effective, retroactive, and applicability date provisions
SF 525 - An Act relating to county and state responsibilities for mental health, mental retardation, and developmental disabilities services for adults and children, making appropriations, and including effective date provisions.
 Bills Signed By Governor:
HF 562 - an act relating to the child abuse registry. 4/6/11
HF 45 - An Act relating to public funding and regulatory matters and making, reducing, and transferring appropriations and revising fund amounts and including effective, retroactive, and other applicability date provision. 3/1/11. SF 209 - increases the state earned income tax credit, creates a new tax relief fund, coupling and bonus depreciation language. Governor vetoed portions of bill. 4/21. SF 482 - makes proposed technical changes. Includes provisions on child care resource and referral agencies. 4/28 |
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Save the Date
February 8 & 9, 2012
Early Childhood Iowa Congress
Building Quality Systems from the Inside Out: Passion, Creativity & Change
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______________________ _______________________  Early Childhood Programming and the 2011 Budget - Part IIBy Jared Solomon Now that the executive agencies have released their line item funding tables and other spending details, we can finally close the book on the fiscal year 2011 Federal Budget. If you would like more information on how we arrived at this point, please read Part 1 of this post. The picture for FY 2011 is positive. (Click here to view a table displaying the funding levels for all the discretionary programs that affect early learning.) Funding levels have increased by approximately $1 billion, representing a net gain of 9.5% over FY 2010 amounts. Half these gains come from a sizeable increase to Health and Human Services programs like Head Start, the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG), and the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Visiting Program. The other half comes from an additional $500 million for the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge. Other programs under the Department of Education remained generally unaffected by cuts, aside from the 0.2% rescission. Even Start, which was cut entirely, was the only exception. The elimination of Even Start had also been proposed in the President's FY 2011 budget. To read the rest of the article, click here.
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