 Good morning. This is the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and it is April 8th. This morning we're taking some continuing testimony on the child care bill as H171 and we're going to hear from some folks who have important information to share with us on 171 and their own organizations and the workspaces that they represent. Good morning. Sarah, did you want to kick this off? I'm open to that, how you would like to organize this a little bit. Sure. Thanks, I'm happy to say just a couple of comments just following up on last week's conversation. But I want to make sure most of the time is dedicated to the great witnesses who you have lined up this morning. So I just want to start by thanking the committee again for your thoughtful conversations about this. I've been really appreciating both the conversation last week and as we've been listening in on YouTube to some of your discussions as well. The overall picture just before we sort of dive back into the details today. Families are struggling and you'll hear more about that from the programs who are supporting some of the families who are struggling the most in our state. The pandemic, as we know, has highlighted some of the deep inequities that already existed across the board and childcare is no exception. Early childhood educators have been on the front lines all along during this pandemic and need fair compensation for that. Still H171 makes changes now for families who are in the childcare financial assistance program. It expands it a little bit. It strengthens the pipeline of new early childhood educators and I'm sure you'll hear this morning about what a challenge staffing is in many programs. It's important wheels in motion with two studies. So the systems analysis and the financing study to really part our course for the state and give the legislature some concrete solutions and options to work within the coming years. So ultimately this bill is about families and the economy and our workforce, but mostly it's about children and our youngest children and our state's commitment to them. And so I'm really glad that you're hearing this morning from Head Start programs and from the Otterfeek Children's Center. These are exemplary programs. They're very high quality. Head Start nationally and in Vermont really sets the standard for what high quality care can look like with highly paid or well compensated and well supported employees, high quality spaces. And even in spite of all of that those programs are still struggling because of the lack of state investment in a more holistic way. So and that's even with the significant federal pandemic supports and state supports that you all have helped to mobilize over the course of the past year. So I'm really glad that you're going to be hearing from these folks this morning. I just want to leave you with in the in the house. The committee talks a lot about how Vermonters and especially Vermont youngest children really need bold solutions right now and I know that this committee likes to think boldly about big solutions for Vermont's children. And so we're just encouraging you to be bold as you think about this bill and the work to be done in the coming years. So I want to turn it over to the folks who are really living and breathing this on the ground every day. Thank you very much Sarah and one never knows what what happens with boldness but we do our best. You do. So, let's let's move right to Sue mentor and Sue I understand that Christie Swenson is also here with you. So we'll do we and I think we have something in our documents from you so we'll, we'll pick that up and thank you for being here. We'll listen to your testimony. Thank you so much for allowing us to join you in this important conversation for the record I am Sue mentor and I'm the executive director of capstone community action. We are one of five community action agencies in the state of Vermont serving. We capstone serve Washington LaMoyle and Orange counties. And with me today is Christie Swenson the director of our head start program. I'm going to just start explaining a little bit about what community action is all about, and then more about head start specifically capstone head start program. And we want to just say we are in strong support of h171 as really frontline childcare workers for the most at risk families. We want you to reconsider a decision the house made to put into study a need that we have that the childcare assistance family assistance program financial assistance program the CC FAP be based on enrollment rather than attendance. That has now been put into a study that recommendation that was part of the original bill, and we're going to talk about the impact that the state's decision has had on our incredible programs but first, just to let you know. And I'm starting of course with the pictures of our beautiful children. Capstone community action was established in 1965 out of the war on poverty, and that is our mission to help lift people out of poverty and we have an array of programs to do that. We begin really in, we see it as a two prong strategy, we meet people in crisis, and we help them out of crisis and into financial and economic security. This pandemic, obviously, has really put on steroids our programs focused on meeting people in crisis. And by that I mean food security. Crisis fuel and heating for families, and probably most significantly at least in our case housing, we have been involved in multiple ways with housing our homeless families. But we also do an array of other programs we create warmer and healthier and cost effective and efficient homes through the weatherization assistance program that you are also very involved in in your work in the legislature. We support financial empowerment helping people really become independent, starting a business the micro business development program that you, the Senate and the legislature has supported through this pandemic. We do vital volunteer income tax preparation. We do workforce development, an array of programs. But really what I consider our flagship program is the program dedicated to breaking the generational cycle of poverty. Which is absolutely essential through early education and development programs, as you see in our headstart program headstart is a federally subsidized program. It doesn't cover all of the costs the feds we rely on the state we raise philanthropic money to make a very holistic program and I want you to understand it's not just childcare that this program. And it isn't for anyone it is specifically and primarily devoted to at risk families, which means families that are homeless and by the way, 30% of the children we serve in our capstone service area are homeless 30%. We serve generally in normal times, 375 families throughout our service area so we're not one small childcare center. We actually have an array of programs. Christy if you can go to the next slide. It helps you see more carefully by mandate 10% of our families have our children's with disabilities, but we also have children in foster care, we have children whose parents are suffering or challenged by substance misuse, or substance use disorder. We have the children of parents who are incarcerated. And we have families at the federal poverty level which you know means very low income. But we aren't just bringing them to a childcare center we actually have an array of programs. We have home visitors, those are families that have each week of visitor a trained home visitor coming for an hour and a half to the family. We are working partnership with public pre case as well as with private providers. The programs that are most affected by the policy we're talking about the CC FAP are our center based programs so in capstone service area, we have a program in LaMoyle County, as well as in Morrisville and also in Barry. We serve in two ways one is called the head start which is three to five year olds, and then the early head start so these are two come programs but the early head start looks at pregnant mothers, all the way to age three. And in our Barry childcare center, we actually have a program for pregnant and parenting teens, where our young pregnant moms who have dropped out of high school are enabled to get their diploma, while pregnant and as their child, their parents are born right there in our childcare center. But what that program and it really points out is the importance of the variety of programming are young moms are not just getting their high school diploma, they're learning how to be moms they access to an array of programs that all of our families do health care, oral health care, mental health care, case, wrap around case management. So our families are, you know, have a variety of needs based on trauma throughout their lives, and we are there to support them. And I think let's move I think so here are in this you'll see the different providing programs and the different who is eligible for head start now I want to look at what has happened during the pandemic. Obviously, the pandemic has just been an extraordinary time and I am so in awe of our head start programs and staff who, you know, even we at capstone really foresaw and prepared. Even before the governor took action to close our schools we made a decision and it was a difficult one to begin to anticipate this, and actually we closed down ours. Our care provided at our center. What we did was we thought creatively about how to keep our programs going. So each week, we delivered to every one of our families packet materials activities and food. I fail to mention that food and nutrition is essential to our head start programs we provide nutritious meals, a breakfast, a lunch and a snack and for many perhaps most of these children, it is the only healthy meals they are able to get. So we made sure that we ensured that they continue to get them through deliveries of meals of activity packs, and continuing to communicate with every family over the phone we made sure they had hotspots made sure they had phones, and we stayed in touch with them through this very stressful time. We never wavered on that. And we do really appreciate that the state did decide to reimburse us during the shutdown for all students enrolled in our program. But then in September when we opened up our classrooms, we made very cautious and thoughtful decisions about and strategize and work so hard about how do we open up safely. We did a rigorous following of the CDC guidelines in terms of the amount of students that could be in each space. And obviously made the decision that we didn't open up fully because we wanted to make sure our families and our teachers were as safe as possible. We made separate entrances. Our classrooms never connected our teachers never connected and still to this day, retain very safe environments for our families. And now what that required was that we did what you would call in the schools a hybrid, we had two days with 50% of the classroom, one day of cleaning and letting the air, and then the next two days Thursday Friday the other 50% of the classroom. So essentially, the number of students we were able to enroll reduce significantly, or the number of families that were coming, we enrolled them, but they weren't there four days a week they were there two days a week. So, what did that mean, the childcare financial assistance program is based on attendance, rather than enrollment. So, for us if you can point out here, look at the federal money that comes to just in capstone for our head start our early head start program we have six 4.6 million dollars. And then for our partnership programs, an additional $671,000 federal dollars. Normally, and how we budget every year is depending on that childcare financial assistance to the tune of 847,000, as well as Act 166. So, in normal times we are seeing that if you think about this, every dollar state dollar you are putting in investing in this program for the most at risk families is actually leveraging $5 five to one ratio of federal to state dollars for the incredible program that you are getting here. Now, unfortunately, because of this decision to only reimburse us based on attendance. We have lost in capstone between June of 2020 and December, $200,000 deficit, moving forward into the year that we are now in, we are looking at an additional $237,000 deficit. The capstone is looking at a $437,000 deficit right now that I am trying to figure out how to manage that Christie is trying to figure out how to manage because of this decision which by the way, the national head start program is not reducing our and their investment at us at this most critical time for our families and our communities. They are being very flexible. They are supporting us. In fact, the accolades on our head start was mentioned in a national head start publication because of the work we did during the pandemic. Other states are also paying CCF AP based on enrollment. That's what we believe Vermont should do. What are the impacts we've had to leave positions unfilled. We don't have the temporary staff, which means, you know, when a teacher is sick and can't be there if there's no substitute, the classroom can't open. So we've had a series of those we can't read, we gave away all of these important materials for our families to keep their children active through the pandemic through the shutdown. Restock. We are very much hampered and the stress on our teachers and obviously they do their best not to make that trickle down to the families but I just want to conclude, and you can close the presentation Christie by saying, I really am amazed by our head start program of the results. You will see incredible results in some of the materials I also presented from you from our head start over program. What the state is getting with the federal investment in this program and the relatively minimal investment that they need to make we really implore you to help us through these times to consider the enrollment based. Any business cannot all of a sudden not receive. When I was a had my children in childcare, you can be sure I had to play pay my provider whether my kids were there or not. Why would we ask something different for the lowest income students, what private business is going to ever be able to bring low income students into their program into their childcare, if they can't be paid if the student isn't there. So, I would just ask your consideration to, to actually help us through this pandemic, and really to consider reimbursement based on enrollment, rather than attendance. I know there are others to testify I hope I didn't go on too long. I thank you for your time and I'm here throughout this, along with Christie to answer questions either now or at the end. One question, actually to I think, and then we'll, then we'll go ahead, unless there are questions of understanding. So the amount of the dollar request that you were asking for is, is that the 237,000 that we see on on the. It's actually 437,000 because we're already 200 in our last fiscal year and now we are anticipating in this fiscal year that. Okay, so for that's just for capstone, but that's right that's not for the all the head start programs in Vermont. Okay, we'll get there thank you. So this is just for zoom enter at this time. So the other, the other question is, are you asking for this only as during the coven time and recovery, or is this an ongoing request for enrollment reimbursement by enrollment. Yes, this is an ongoing request for reimbursement by enrollment as other states do. And I guess it's really also helping to fill our deficit. During this critical time when we haven't been able to receive the reimbursement that we think is necessary and obviously that is hampering us struggling forward and you know, yeah, I, that's it thanks. And with then, and then finally, during the pandemic, when you were receiving CRF funding, a supplemental funding, you were being paid by enrollment, and that stopped. Christie can you verify exactly how that happened. Yeah, June 1, it switched back to attendance. So you were paid from March to June. Yeah, yeah, from it was mid March I want to say around the 15th through the last day of May we were paid based on enrollment and then June 1 switch to attendance. Okay, and then did you get notice of that. Notified boy it wasn't much notification I don't know Deb if you remember it feels like it was two weeks maybe. Madam chair. Yeah, go ahead Senator hard. I just want to clarify this because it sounds like we're discussing something was specific to capstone and it's not. The state program well let me let me explain so that people out in the state program last year during the first two and a half months of the pandemic I believe it was from like mid March through June 1 paid based on enrollment for students in or for children in all of the programs that received CC FAP payments my and then it went back to attendance base for everyone so it wasn't specific to the programs that are here today it was a statewide thing. And my understanding of what suit mentor and others and Sarah started are asking for is not a change just for their programs it's a change in the way the state does it more broadly, and to continue what was done in the first two and a half months of the pandemic, and everyone's nodding their head so I think that's I just wanted to make sure that was clear because that line of question made it sound like it was just suit mentor asking for it for her program, but it's a much broader ask than that. So what we're trying to do now thank you Senator that's very good clarification but what we're trying to do now is to understand the extent to which enrollment based reimbursement is critical for a variety of organizations across the state. And we do understand that what happened last year, because we asked to have it happen, but it was a may so the when you asked the administration, you indicate to the administration that they may reimburse by enrollment then it becomes a may and not a shell. So that's where we are with this one Senator Cummings. And you're muted Senator. This has been an issue since day one, one of my first jobs was with head start. And that the pay on enrollment children get sick. All the time, but you still have to pay the teacher. And if you don't get paid when the child isn't there. You don't have the money to pay the teacher. So this has been. I think I first ran into it in the 70s, it's been an issue forever. I agree. I ran into it in the 70s too. All right, Senator Hooker. Thank you. Senator Lyons. Maybe you could clarify for me what happens with the federal money when we're doing enrollment versus attendance. So the federal money is continues. The issue is the, you know, our financial, our business relies on federal money, it relies on state money, it relies on independent philanthropic money. And what happened is if you take portion of the state money away, we are in this deficit. So the federal money federal the head start program remain very flexible and very supportive of us throughout this time. That answer your question. The deficit is the state money, the federal money isn't being affected. Not only more, if we do, if we do enrollment versus attendance, there's no more federal drawdown than there is. I want to make sure to, there isn't, I said it's like a match, but it isn't really a drawdown. I'm just saying that we are leveraging great federal resources with a relative five to one ratio of state to federal, but it isn't a program that relies upon that state dollar to bring the federal dollar. So the federal's will come will stay. Okay, thank you. All right, so I know we're, thank you. No, Mr. Geller, we're going to continue on with testimony and when we get to you, you'll be able to share with us your thoughts and perhaps answer some of these questions in your testimony to thank you. So we'll move on to Deb gas, who is the executive director of early Ed services in Brattleboro. Good morning everyone and thank you Sue for giving a perfect groundwork for things I don't have to say now because early education services is located in Wyndham County we are a designated Vermont parent child center, as well as a head start early head start program. And we serve all of Wyndham County, we are a full day full year operating program. Many of the things that Sue mentioned are also services that are provided by ES. We finance our full day model by blending head start early head start and child development division funds to make that full day head start has never given us funding for full day operations but they encourage us to collaborate with our partners with our state partners to make that happen. And, and we have been doing that for many years we serve 184 families in our head start and early head start program and then probably another hundred through our parent child center designation. The points that I want to sort of endorse that Sue mentioned our first that head start is our funding is based on enrollment versus attendance. And so we are able to have continuity of services, because we can rely on that funding model, much like businesses do. And we have, we have limped along through the pandemic with with being able to continue to provide those full day services we we never, we never skipped a beat when when the state moved into lack lockdown or quarantine mode. EES quickly stepped up to the plate and open essential childcare for many of our families. And we did that for about a month we did have a COVID case we had to close for a few weeks and then we, we booted right back up in June and opened 13 of our 15 classrooms for our families. And we were able to use the, the, the relief funds that came through the state to address the gaps, the finance, the financial gaps that we were experiencing because we as for all the reasons that Sue mentioned, there were days when we couldn't fully serve our families. And one of the, one of the key struggles that we still are faced with is is the daily health screens that we must conduct in response to the protocol set by the Department of Health around COVID. Often some of our teachers don't pass that health screen, or our subs and so we have to close a classroom for the day or we have to reduce the enrollment for the day and really try to focus just on the families who really have no other option. We operate with a limited staffing pattern, but those are days that we cannot bill the child development division because we are not serving particular children on that day. Our average net loss at this point is $7,000 a month. Right now we are dealing with an accumulative impact of about $35,000 in deficit that we're, we're not sure how we can address. We have access to funds that were, that were given to us by the state, but they have, you know, that's water under the bridge at this point. And in moving ahead when we move when we rise out of this pandemic, we are going to be left with the impact of the pandemic that I think still has will have a significant trick trickle down effect, and we need to be able to stay in business to help support our families there. You know, as Sue mentioned, we are seeing exaggerated needs at this point, and it will be a long recovery, I imagine. And when we don't, when we're not stable in our ability to rely on consistent funding, we can't keep our doors open, we can't keep staff, we can't pay staff. And, and you know that leads into a little bit of a path that I wanted to talk about and that is the lack of early education and childcare staff that we are all struggling with that has become exacerbated by the pandemic, because we are, we are having, care in very risky situations, or at least that's a perception. And so we're, we're having a hard time keeping our staff. EES has 15 classrooms, we have not been able to open two of our classrooms, because we just can't find the staff. And the other piece of that is that the salaries and wages for early child care early child hood and early child hood educational professionals is significantly lower than what colleagues and in public schools are making and, and that's general knowledge and that is really steering a lot of young folks away from the field. And so, again, the pandemic is only exacerbating that, and we need to be able to, to have solid program we need to be able to rely on solid funding. I have worked in other states, Massachusetts, one that that bases their state funding on enrollment versus, I'm sorry attendance versus enrollment model, and New Hampshire is also in the same boat. And, and I think that we, we need the ask is that, you know, this is not just a snapshot situation, but a model that we are pleading with you to consider as we move forward. I think, I think that the rest of what I wanted to say really was covered in Sue's presentation. Thank you. Thank you. And let me just say how helpful it is that that you are not, we're not redundant. It's, I think the points have been made very well, and we appreciate your endorsing some of the comments that Sue Mitter made as well. Well, thank you for that. Questions of clarification committee. Okay. Senator Hardy. Thank you madam chair and thank you, Deborah and Sue, I had a question, Sarah in her opening comments, made a comment about Head Start programs being able to pay their staff more. But you just made a comment about the low pay of your staff so I'm just wondering if you, is it true that Head Start pay providers are able to pay their staff more. And if so, how much more and how is that because of the federal month. I would say that that is the general perception. But it is not always true, because Head Start does not, you know, tell every, every program. Here's what we want you to pay your staff and here's the money to do that. There's a lump sum to each of the agencies and they say, do what you can with this tell us how you plan to do this and you know Head Start is a locally designed model. So the amount of funds we have available to contribute towards salaries are based on our budget and what we can leverage in our community as in kind donations. I would say that in my own region, my salary scale is comparable to that of our partners, our private partners. In our case, because we are also part of the Wyndham Southeast School District, we are able to tap into their benefit package, we have to pay for it, but it's more affordable because we're part of that bigger entity. By and large, I would agree with Sarah's comment that Head Start probably has more funds to contribute toward their salaries. Nonetheless, the salaries are not commensurate with what we're asking our professionals to do and what our teachers to have in their toolbox. So the field is still in desperate need of more funding and financing to pay salaries commensurate with the work. I would just add that for Capstone, because our Head Start is part of our community action agency, we are committed to having a full benefit package so we have health care we have 401k we, and that I think is not necessarily something that other health agencies are able to provide but it is absolutely what the bill is aspiring to. And we also, I think because of the support of Head Start, support our teachers certification, we pay for their education certification through Head Start funding so those are two aspects that are I think worth mentioning relative to some of and we, and we are a five star high quality childcare. I would say like Deb, what we see is we're slightly able to pay a little bit more than other providers but not as much generally as the child as the school system. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Yeah, that was good. That's good clarification. Thank you. Can you pay regardless of whether or not there are kids in the classroom. So, okay. So we'll move on to Steve. Geller, who is here from the southeastern Vermont Community Action. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much, Senator and thank you all for your time and your consideration of this important issue. I'm not going to be on the, all right, as the volume good. I'm experiencing a little bit of instability I cut out and got thrown off and came back at one point so I apologize if that happens again. As Senator Lyons mentioned, we serve southeastern Vermont, Wyndham and Windsor counties. Our Head Start childcare and universal pre K program is restricted to just Windsor County because Deb and her program are serving Wyndham County and we're doing that before we took on Head Start, you know, many years ago. So just a quick background from mine. I am the president of our state association Vermont Community Action Partnership. I'm on the board representing New England of the National Community Action Partnership, and I've been in the Community Action Network in four different organizations and three states for 39 years. And those of which were in organizations that had Head Start and childcare programs. So I come to this discussion to this, you know, issue with a lot of experience and those of you who mentioned this being an issue in the 70s I can. I wasn't in the system at that point but as far back as I was in Community Action, starting in the early 80s. This has been a concern. I think childcare in general has been looked on as an orphan child in many ways. Mr. Geller you are frozen. You're frozen. All right. This is one of the beauties of having zoom. I, and we've all experienced it. Why don't we ask Elizabeth Brown to go ahead. I understand that you're under some time constraints. So you're welcome. So please unmute yourself and provide your testimony that be very helpful. Thank you so much Senator. Good morning. I am Elizabeth Brown I am the current Head Start director for Rutland County Head Start. I am new to my experience at Head Start but absolutely love Head Start and will do anything I can to advocate for the needs of the children and families we serve. I want to share our experience and challenges with the current model of reimbursement that is based on attendance versus enrollment and to express my support for the passing of the childcare bill h171 with the added piece of shifting in reimbursement to enrollment versus attendance. In order to really understand and gain insight into the importance of enrollment versus attendance. It'll be important to go back to 2010. In 2010 the state ended contracted slots. These contracted slots meant predictable income and in turn a clear way to intentionally plan for the fiscal year ahead. The contracted slots ended and we moved to an attendance based model Rutland County Head Start had to terminate five full time employees due to the significant loss of revenue and the unpredictable income we received. The shift in the current model makes stabilizing our budget and even staffing very difficult. As you all have noted the overhead costs of staffing facilities program supplies and administrative costs do not shift or change based on a child attendance. The costs are consistent. While much of our funding comes from the federal government we do rely on CC FAP to round out our budget and to support our ability to provide our children with full time early care and education programming that many of our full time working families need desperately. Without a consistent income organizations like Head Start will feel at the mercy of the attendance records of our children. Rutland County Head Start like many of the programs you've heard from serve the most vulnerable children in our community. We serve 117 children and families with multiple risk factors that make them some of the most vulnerable individuals we serve. In some cases we are a family's last resort for care because of the high quality staff we hire the comprehensive services we provide and the mental health services that we have integrated into our program. Like our children, like our like the children and families we walk alongside, we too need stability and consistency to ensure our programming can continue and can maintain the highest quality of care and education that we are passionate about delivering. This last fiscal year like many of the other programs, Rutland County Head Start suffered a loss of over $200,000. We anticipate that loss to be even greater as we look towards our current fiscal year. This loss has created a significant reduction in any emergency reserves we may have and will be felt for many years to come. It is hard for me to understand why when a child is out due to a multiple told of reasons that are beyond our control, we as an organization must struggle to front the bill. This is my hope that the committee will demonstrate its dedication and investment into the lives of our youngest and most vulnerable residents by passing the child care bill h171, and by allowing us to not only survive, but to thrive regardless of the adversities we may face as we work hard to provide the highest level of care and education to the children and families in Vermont. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Thank you for the time you were with us. That was very clear. Questions of clarification. All right. I think that we're really getting beginning to get a picture. And we appreciate the clarity that you bring to the to the issue. Steve Geller, are you there? I'm not sure where I was. I'm sorry. You won't freeze. Thank you, Elizabeth. Take care. Yes, I thought that was a good idea. I'll try that. Just I think begin where you were. I'm not sure where I was. I'm sorry. I'm just stating the, the problem that's facing you is probably a good place to start. Okay, sure. I think I was starting to say that childcare has for many, many years as people have pointed out, been looked on as sort of an orphan child in, you know, in term in professional terms, like babysitters instead of the child development program that had started really upset game to a tremendous degree because of the standards that we have to follow when we provide any kind of care or development developmental support within head start. And I'm not going to repeat what what folks have already said very articulately I'll just try to, you know, add to complement what they said by providing a perspective that might be helpful for you to think about. Childcare is often dealt with and I think the question of this attendance versus enrollment reimbursement issue is an example of that is that it's almost like it's perceived as an impulse by like like when you want to go to a movies at night and you call the babysitter and say you available. They come down, you pay them that night and, you know, and that transaction is complete. That's not the way childcare typically works in the real world and especially not on a long term basis. It's not if you think about what impulse buys are that that are additional income for for businesses that they don't depend on for their survival for their livelihood, like chewing gum and five hour energy drinks beef jerky or fidget spinners. That's not what childcare is we all agree that it's a vital service that people have to plan for scheme cajole and sometimes bribe their way for years to obtain the best option for their kids. And it's critical in so many ways to help families build better futures for their children and enables healthy child development and prepares kids for transition to succeed in school and in later life. And it's an invaluable support for workforce development that allows motivated workers to enter and stay in the workforce and for employees to obtain qualified work the qualified workforce they need. It's a mission driven enterprise that depends on reliably consistent compensation for sustainability. It can survive on walk in impulse buying attendance based payment only when kids show up empty slots must be committed to and paid for to support qualified workers the facilities they work in the equipment they need and the materials license requirements and everything else that comes with a professional quality childcare business and operation. And if we're serious about enabling equitable access to opportunity and healthy child development and to eliminate the chronic intergenerational poverty that we see all over our state. Then the state must commit to be the reliably consistent payer for those services, since their cost is beyond the reach of the families that we no need this service with low and often even moderate incomes. And without them they're stuck on the treadmill that goes nowhere. Quality affordable childcare is inherently beneficial, as many have pointed out, but head starts value added benefits add even more to it. Such as full featured proven child development outcomes overcoming the disadvantages of poverty comprehensive family support services full day wrap around care and flexibility to support working parents, progressive career path and dependable jobs with livable wages and excellent benefits. And I want to also just clarify something that that submitter had said about the leveraging of the federal dollars. While there's no, you know, strict one to one match that says if you for every dollar you don't bring in, you're not going to be able to get your federal funding. There is, however, a requirement that at least 25% of the total funding for our programs for which we get head start grants be funded by other than the federal grant that we get. And the quarter of the funding is really is a required a mandated match that we have to come up with either through through a combination of cash from other sources that are not federal and and or in kind contributions and the truth is that for the most time we need that additional doll those additional dollars in in cash because the federal grant is only really giving us 75% of what we need to operate a full featured quality comprehensive program as we do. So, think of it this way that there's a three to one return on investment, at a minimum, and as soup pointed out for a program it's more. It is for mine as well but it has to be at least a three, three to one ROI on every state dollar provided for sustainable care due to the head start grant requirement and and that leverage funding is something that benefits all the children in the program in the state because of the, you know, the way that operates and enables us in most cases to leverage even more than that minimum. So, there's been a there's been a misconception that that has occurred in the debate about whether head start program should be eligible for Act 166 funding for participation in the universal pre K program in Vermont. This is a settled a settled precedent that is some people said that, well, we already run these programs so you're double dipping, but it was based on a misdisposed conception that we didn't have to get additional funding to operate the programs the fact is that we do. And that money that comes in that the federal dollars require our leveraging helps to keep those federal dollars in the state. So, all for all those reasons it's critical that there be this reliable and consistent method the enrollment based method that not the attendance only when you're in the seats method to to fund the program so that the low income people, low income families that need this program need the childcare, most desperately are able to get it in order for them to work in order for them to get trained for all the things that are necessary and our benefits from them having the childcare they need for their children. Steve that was that was very, very helpful and we don't have your testimony on our webpage but if you can get us something and writing, we would appreciate that. Sure. Perfect questions of clarification. All right, we're good. I've we're we're beginning to get the full picture. So this is extremely helpful. And we will turn to Linda January from Otter Creek Child Care Center. Where is she. There you are. I think you just, you kept moving around on my screen. Welcome. The joys of zoom. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me for the record. My name is Linda January. I'm the executive director of Otter Creek Child Center in Middlebury Vermont. And I run a very different program from Head Start, although we are an early Head Start partner with Champlain Valley Head Start. Our day to day operations look a little bit different. I sat down to write this and had a little bit of a deja vu moment. It was almost two years ago to the date that I testified in the house on a very similar bill that H 171 is still issues that it's still pushing forward. And I hope to just give you a little bit of a highlight into the impacts it will have on programs as well as families. Otter Creek is a nonprofit organization. We were founded in 1984 as an infant and toddler center and we now serve up to preschoolers. We currently have 45 children. We have 13 full time teachers, three part time teachers, two full time administrators, a part time administrative assistant, a part time bookkeeper, and a handful of regular substitute teachers who are in and out of the building. We have an average cost per child for this current school year of just over $14,000. Oh, sorry, just over $21,000. The average amount of tuition dollars coming in per child is only $14,000. So there's a funding gap of just over $7,000 per child when it comes to tuition funding and tuition funding comes from CFAP dollars from co pays family co pays. We do have a lot of families who are 100 or who pay 100% out of pocket you and act $166. But because of this funding gap, we 28% of our budget comes from other revenue sources outside of tuition and of that 28% over 71,000 of it is grant funds. We budget about 11,000 for fundraising. And that's on a good year. Last year and this year we're not good fundraising years. If we were to lose our biggest grant of $40,000, we would have to reduce three of our teachers from 40 hours a week to 30 hours a week, which would impact our programming. We currently fund around $14,000 and scholarships to families. So that that's funds that we raise through grants through town support, and that we bring back into our budget as scholarships support for families and most of those families are receiving a CFAP dollars. Some are receiving 100%. And because of where our rate that and where subsidy rates currently are, there's a gap. And so we fill that gap with scholarship dollars and families who fall below 100%. We automatically give them a scholarship, and they pay. So if a family comes in at 25%, their co pay is up to 80% of the subsidy rate and then we cover the remaining of the tuition dollars. So if the changes in each 171 come to full for tuition and my board makes a decision to go full throttle and just buy the this this way with the state, then it could increase our it could ink. We would see an increase of $97,000 to our budget through tuition payments. We become less reliant on grant funds to balance the budget. Instead grants would be able to enhance the program instead of balancing the budget. 16% of our revenue would come from other revenue sources and this is all these are already revenue sources that are built into our budget. The need for in-house scholarship would lessen reducing our expenses and my position, I would be able to shift my time from fiscal oversight to program support. These are all huge things. Time is is so precious and my time in classrooms supporting teachers. I think that for me would be more than anything would benefit our program more than anything. And then the changes for families. So we currently have a family. It's a two parent home, both family, both parents are working full time. They have a toddler and an infant that are enrolled full time, five days a week. They make approximately $68,772 a year. This brings them in to receive subsidy at 25% of the full time rate. So on the chart, their co-pay their monthly co-pay for two children under the age of two is over $2,400 a month. They bring in the subsidy pays about $606 a month of that tuition, and we provide a scholarship of $609. So their monthly co-pay is $1,260 a month. That's 22% of their income. With the changes that are proposed in H171, that family would come in at 275% of the federal poverty level, making their maximum co-pay for the month around $541.25. That's 9% of their income. So it reduces their co-pay by 43%. We no longer would need scholarship funds, and we would receive the full tuition. Full tuition would be collected. This is huge for families. I could probably give you 10 other examples. We have families who are receiving subsidy now who will move up and will receive more support. And then we have this group of families that we're cradling with our in-house scholarship funds that right now aren't eligible for CFAP dollars, but they will become eligible. And it will just, it will be a game changer for them. The other pieces around H171 that are huge for Otter Creek are the scholarship and loan repayments. So we currently have three teachers who are receiving teach scholarships through the Vermont Association of Education for Young Children. And one of those teachers are currently, she's graduating this May, which is super exciting. She's been attending CCV part-time, working full-time for the past four years. And we are all so excited that she has made this achievement. And along the way, she has moved up the career ladder. She has gotten bonuses. She has gotten raises. And yet it's not enough. She will be graduating and without being able to continue on with a B and a bachelor's because there is no scholarship support or significant scholarship support for her to do so. And even though she will be getting a raise, it's not enough to continue to support higher education as she's struggling to pay rent and healthcare. We don't offer healthcare. So she goes through the exchange and it's not really affordable. And it sometimes doesn't feel like real insurance. So, you know, we have a goal that if a teacher comes to us who just graduated and has a teaching license and early childhood education that we're able to pay them $40,000 a year. Currently, if that person came to us, it would take them 13 years of working with us before they reached $40,000 on our current salary scale. So we do have a goal to pay entry level teachers $15 an hour and we're currently at 1350 an hour. We also want to be able to offer a comprehensive benefit package and we can't do that. We do have some, you know, the benefits we do have their good benefits. We do have wonderful paid time off, paid holidays, short term and long term disability, but it's nowhere near enough to make this field sustainable for teachers. When I talked to Kelsey about her future and it's heartbreaking to me to hear this young teacher who is graduating with her associates degree feel really defeated about this field and thinking that long term, this isn't going to be an option. And these bridge supports would really help teachers as the state administration continue to build out on what's outlined in H171, you know, to get us to a place where we're able to offer a comparable wage to public schools with an affordable benefit package. And then just the last piece is the studies that are in H171. I strongly recommend them and feel that they're really necessary to see this full vision out. The analysis study, you know, before any big changes happen to our system, it's really important to know what's working, what's not working. You know, what is the field thinking about it? How does the field perceive this system that we live and breathe every day? And the financial study, you know, the field is excited. We are so excited. We feel like for the first time, like, it's going to happen. Like, we've been working so hard to feel like we've been heard to feel like we're going to be at a place where we can pay our teachers and afford to keep our teachers and to make it affordable for families. And yet with that excitement comes some skeptic, right? How? How is this going to happen? And the financial study will really answer those questions of how will it be sustainable? The field needs to know that this is really, that this investment in this plan is not just a short term, that this is the long haul. And this financial study will answer those questions and show the field that the state and the administrative administration is serious about supporting early childhood education at a level that it should be. Thank you very much. You have each and you, Linda, including you in this, you've provided a really nice set of information that it's going to help us as we go through H171. It's not that we are unaware of the issues, but it is just critically important that we understand what's happening on the ground. You have provided that for us. We're acutely aware of the high rate of turnover and the inability of folks to continue where they love to work the most with kids. And so we're very appreciative of the time that you've taken to bring us your testimony. Committee, any final questions of clarification? Okay. Thank you all. And we'll give you a minute to, to scoot off because we're moving on to the next topic of the day, but this topic is really important to us. And by the way, we are returning to H171 next week, so we'll spend, I forget which day it is, it's Wednesday or Thursday, we'll spend a significant amount of time talking about the bill and we'll keep all of your testimony in mind as we go forward. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Senators. We appreciate it. Take care. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Take care. Wow, feels like a small committee. Everyone go. Cheryl went for some reason. Maybe she'll be back. Oh, I don't know where she went. Oh, well. Okay. We have, that was terrific, I think. And we'll have to spend some time understanding the, I don't know whether. Here she comes back in. I don't know whether Nolan did a. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just wrote on the cost, the total cost for enrollment based. Reimbursement. For this, I do know that there's some, there's CC FAP increase in the bill. And we also know that there's a cap on family expenditures of 10% of one salary. And I think we just got a picture of how much it is when it's not 10%. So, I don't know if anyone has three or four kids in childcare. That's a, that might end up being a bit costly. So, so keep, keep your thoughts about that. And we'll, we'll have to have a broad discussion about that next week when we come back to the bill. So I think what we should do now. I do have a couple of comments that we'll say for the end of the, I think we'll have to have a broad discussion about that next week. I think we'll have to have a broad discussion about that next week. Our continuing interest in looking at. The. All payer model and the healthcare implementation plan that we have in front of us. And I've invited. In a back as director of healthcare reform from the agency of human services. To give us some information. You know, you are here. Thank you for being back. Appreciate it greatly. Thank you. So I'm going to have a, I'm going to have a, a two minute stretch. All right. So, and we're going to, we'll stretch that out. Take three minutes.