 it takes a minute okay it says it's now streaming live okay welcome everybody it's Senate Education April 30th 2020 this is our remote delivery system for committee hearings welcome Senator Ingram so today's subject as the agenda lays out is child care the rules surrounding the amount that parents are being asked to pay is one question and then another question is given the realities that parents are supporting in part the child care system through the pandemic is there something that the state can do to reimburse them the idea that we've put forward so far as a tax credit and so we're gonna get into that second but the first issue that I wanted to talk about is where this all started so Debbie and I have a constituent who wrote to us and my understanding prior to that person's email was that parents were being asked to pay 50% of their normal tuition bill and then the state would pick up the other 50% if that bargain was kept then the child would retain their slot and when the child care opened up in the not too distant future we hope their spot would be preserved but the email that Debbie and I got said that at least one child care provider had put forward a slightly different policy which was encouraging parents to pay 100% of their normal tuition bill if they could afford to do so and then 50% if they could not afford to do so and this person felt caught in a in an ethical dilemma where technically speaking they had the money to pay for their normal tuition but they had other places that that money could go given that they weren't being provided with child care so my question for oh and I do see Stephen Burbeco Stephen are you there deputy commissioner agency of human services not sure if you heard that intro okay I was I was framing up why we set up this hearing and it had to do with a misunderstanding miscommunication or it may be the committee's misunderstanding of what the guidelines are around excuse me senator Baruch yes someone I've admitted someone to the meeting with just a phone number that I'm not familiar with so I think we need to check in with who that person is or else I have to leave them kick them out of the meeting okay so it's a phone number running 127 yes if that person can identify themselves yeah it's me senator Perksley okay okay that's Andy thank you okay kick him out off please so so back to where we were as I understood the guidelines and in talking to people it seemed as though informed people agreed that the guideline was that parents would pay 50% in the state 50% but as we'll hear from Mary Jo sleeper there were organizations that were working from CDD documents that had the impression that they were supposed to encourage parents to pay 100% when they weren't actually receiving their childcare so I wanted to first go if we could to Commissioner or Beko do have I pronounced that correctly yeah thank you okay and ask if you could just summarize the policy and answer that specific question the policy about paying 50% yes and is there a parallel drive to encourage parents to pay 100% if they can well in brief I'm not aware of any guidance that we have sent out let me back up if I can for the record I'm Stephen Burekko deputy commissioner for child development division department for children and families afternoon chair and senators I'm joined here with a CDD policy director Melissa Regal Garrett okay and to your question about the contribution that parents make for providers that are closed and taking advantage of the or participating in the stabilization program the stabilization program offers providers 50% of tuition for children who are would otherwise be in the program but the program is closed for the time and parents are asked to contribute up to 50% of tuition or 50% of childcare subsidy less any amount that is contributed by Act 166 or any existing scholarship programs that the provider can take advantage of okay and that was my understanding but in a minute I'll go to Mary Joe Sleeper who works at the edge here in Chittenden County and she shared with me a frequently asked questions document from which they drew their guidelines which seems to me to give both messages that parents should be encouraged to pay the full amount and if they can't and in a minute we'll ask Mary Joe about that but any any memory from either you or Melissa Regal Garrett about that frequently asked questions document I'm not sure about the document in question however when the stabilization program was first introduced we asked parents to contribute 100% yes it's possible that a provider or family may be looking at an outdated document where the the recommendation is or the request is to pay 100% okay if I could then let me just switch gears to Mary Joe Sleeper Mary Joe I did just introduce you but if there's anything else you'd like to say by way of introduction go ahead and then if you could just speak to how you developed your guidelines and is it is it a outdated document I don't think it's an outdated document this was the second document round we received after so this can contain information about what we should be asking parents prior to April 5th and then post April 5th when the policy changed at least as far as I was aware I work for the Edge Sports and Fitness I was the former director of the South Brilington Kids and Fitness location and now I'm on the executive team there and I oversee all three locations trying to keep a cohesive program running in three different towns in Chittenden County so the frequently asked questions document that I have that I shared with Senator Baruch yesterday question number 15 says should we be asking families post April 5th to pay full tuition or to pay 50% tuition and the answer on this document says families are encouraged to pay full tuition to keep their spots and support their providers state will pay 50% of tuition in COVID-19 COVID-19 stabilization programs and providers may choose to charge up to the remaining 50% but throughout this document in several different questions I don't need to read them all I'm happy to share it with whoever wants to see it it does say that we should encourage the families that can continue to pay to do so we certainly gave families all the options and we allowed them to either unenroll to do the 50% or to continue to pay us we never intended to provide or produce any more stress during this time we really was we're trying to do what was best for our families while holding our obligations to what information was being shared with us so I don't know if you'd like to respond to that commissioner yeah thank you Mary Joe on certainly we want to give providers the full range of options when talking with families and supporting families during this closure period if there are families that would like to pay 100% and I've talked with some families who are doing that for the provider then of course they're welcome to do them well if I could just break in there's a there's a difference here between if a family would like to and being told by your provider that the right thing to do that the state is asking is to pay 100% so it seems to me at the very least a muddled message for the state to set 50% as the correct level that parents should pay but then to have some operations encouraging 100% others saying the guideline is 50% when we come to Ali Richards Ali has been keeping a good systematic eye on things she didn't see anybody really else doing 100% so I guess ultimately a question for us would be what is the state's interest in encouraging people to pay 100% and at the same time issuing the 50% guideline because they they aren't receiving the service for that money absolutely center I apologize and major apologize for the confusion in that guidance this is the first time it's been drawn to my attention and I can assure you that we're going to work to clarify that for providers and families going forward and to your question is the state's interests I believe to support providers and families as much as possible during the closure period and give them the full range of options for how we can make sure that providers are made whole during the closure period and how they can be financially ready on the end of this closure period to reopen for children and families I we certainly didn't intend to create confusion and I apologize for that again we're going to take a look at those documents and make sure that we can issue clarification so that going forward things are clear for providers and for families well thank you I I very much appreciate that it seems to me and then I'll come to query that 50% you know we're talking about thousands of dollars so 50% for a service not being provided is a great sacrifice to the state and to the child care system and I think parents should be commended for 50% but to ask anybody to pay the person who brought this forward has more than one child and so they are paying every month in excess of $2,000 for a service not being provided so senator parent Corey you're muted hi I would have you know CDD look at all their documents one of the biggest complaints I'm getting is from childcare providers and it's not just on payments it's what are they opening what are you know they just feel like they're hearing one thing one day and something else the next day I don't think there's a lot of clarity for them and it puts them a tough spot especially as parents are going back to work you know I was on the phone with my child care provider today just there and they had a lot of questions and we're all going to have questions because you know I have two-year-old son so when things open back up my wife and I are gonna need to figure that out but nobody's getting good answers on anything so I think this is just I know this is on payment but it just seems like it's a pattern of a lack of clarity going out of communities so do you want to respond to that commissioner if I may senator parent I thank you for mentioning that on I wanted to reassure you and the other senators that we are working on our communications we have had to frankly build this new stabilization program and the supports for it very quickly and whereas a structure like this I would prefer to have months if not over a year to put in place we were putting in place in the course of a few days unfortunately one of the pieces that we weren't able to shore up as quickly as we would have liked was the communications piece I'm glad that we have a communications team now responding to providers and families they are providing responses typically within 24 hours and we are also being proactive in our communications sending messages out to providers across all the providers so that they know the latest about what's happening and and what's what are the new developments in the program and also targeted communications to providers to let them know if they've submitted an invoice and if that invoice has been flagged for further review and when they can expect to hear from us you also mentioned reopening and that's something that we are also hearing a lot about and I wanted to reassure you senator parent and the other senators that we have a team of our staff who are working together with colleagues at the agency of education and Vermont Department of Health to develop a plan for reopening with recommendations based on health and safety recommendations and of course aligned with guidance from the governor's office we we're excited to be looking at the other side of closure and we are very excited to look at how we can support childcare providers so that when they can welcome children back to the programs they can do that in a way that is safe and also financially viable for them and just to put in a word I I feel that your agency did yeoman's work in a very very fast and efficient way I was amazed at the entire spectrum of education from what you're doing to K through 12 to higher ed to see everybody in a matter of two weeks make the shifts they did was groundbreaking what we're trying to do is help the agency you know find some of the stress points and and unkink them before they cause too much too much discomfort senator Ingram. Thank you. Yes, I was just looking at the at the department divisions web page and I just wondered, Mary, Joe, which document were you reading from the frequently asked questions for child care programs? Yes. Is that the one and it I was amazed to see that it's 11 pages long. Which which one were you? Um, I was question number 15 on the frequently asked questions that I have in front of me. I know they've they've come out with several of them. So I'm not 100 percent sure it's the same one you're looking at. I know I sent the copy of it to Senator Baruth. I'm happy to send that to you. I'm not so tech savvy that I might hang up on this call if I try to do. Going to be honest with you, I will I will send it to Genie and have Genie send it out to committee members. OK, and I just wanted to say also to Debbie, Christopher, Rebecca, I've had her testimony from him a couple of times on the Health and Welfare Committee. And we do appreciate, you know, I don't want you to think that we're you know, trying to try out to get the division or that we don't understand how difficult it's been in this crisis to do things so so quickly. And we we are here to, you know, just to to support the administration and make sure that our constituents are looked after. But we appreciate very much the job that you and your whole division have been doing. Thank you. So Commissioner, oh, go ahead, Ruth. Well, I can wait if we want to hear more from the commissioner. That's fine. OK, Deputy Commissioner. Yeah, just wondering if either Mr. Burbeco or Melissa Regal-Garrett have anything else they'd like to add. And then I'd like to go to Allie Richards and then to Linda January for, you know, their their responses to this. Well, Senator Booth, if you wouldn't mind, we submitted a memo and I'd like to offer a slight clarification on that to avoid any confusion further on. I'm sorry, did you say you have submitted a memo? Yes, sir. You mean since we've been talking about this? No, sir. Earlier today. Oh, I see. OK, which can you read the relevant part of it to us? Or yes, gladly. So the memo includes some other things. A discussion of a rough data analysis that we conducted within CDD because we wanted to find out more about what the effects of our policy have been on child care. And and I want to offer the caveat that this is a very rough analysis. The data set that we're using is the set of invoices that were submitted between certain dates and from those invoices. We were able to generate some very rough conclusions about or these suggestions about what's happening right now. The invoices show that at least for the time period that we reviewed, that there were over 4,000 children who were included in the stabilization program. Now, I want to clarify that doesn't mean more than 4,000 children are currently receiving child care as children of essential persons that includes children who are receiving care as children of essential persons, as well as children who are counted among the slots in closed programs that are participating in the stabilization programs. When I read through the memo in preparation for this hearing, I caught that and gave myself a little kick for not being clear. And I didn't want to cause any confusion to the senators or to your constituents. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. If if I could just go to Ali Richards. So Ali, CEO of Let's Grow Kids and someone who has had an eye on the system as a whole. Are there other programs that you've noticed who are mistakenly encouraging 100 percent? Hi. Yeah. So this is Ali Richards, CEO of Let's Your Kids. Thank you very much for your attention to this and for inviting me. And so let me just say a couple of things about this conversation as I'm listening to it. So, you know, I wouldn't say mistakenly, Senator, that's that that's the thing about the guidance. I think that I'm curious to hear from Linda as well on this. What I think this is a tricky situation. I think that is the bottom line. The state has a finite amount of money and this is an incredibly expensive program, as we all know, covid is shining a light on the absolute fragility and nonsensical way we set up childcare in the first place. Right. It's not a public good. It's a publicly funded system. It's a system of the have and the have nots. It's a bad way to do business. And we all saw that with stark, you know, relief when the pandemic struck. So this is a bit of, you know, a symptom of that. This is a private pay system where parents are already paying more than they can afford and it would have not probably been in existence if not for the stabilization program as one of the tools in the toolbox in Vermont. We're seeing childcare like 50 percent of childcare businesses closing in some other state. It's really a dire situation. So I just need to kind of give that context of the states swiftly stepped in as you're acknowledging many of you on this call and provided a tool in the toolbox, which is the stabilization program. Now, what we have and the idea is it's a spectrum. You know, since there's not a finite amount of money and it's a private pay system, if you would like to or can pay 100 percent as a parent, you may. The state's only going to reimburse 50 percent. So that's where almost everyone's settling. And if you want to pay or can only pay less than 50 percent, there's actually an option for that as well. A provider can accept less than 50 percent if they make up the rest of the cost somehow through corporate scholarships, some have or other funding or fundraising that they have. So there are a variety of options, plus some may close burlough their employees and going on employment and not, you know, then they don't have money for rent and stuff, but that's a better option for some. So I'm just trying to lay out the idea. There's a spectrum of payments in the stabilization program and a spectrum of options for our care program. And in some it's allowed this industry to not go bankrupt over the past six weeks. So that's the good news. The bad news is a lot of confusion. It's very complicated. And to send their parents, you know, point two, it's also very hard for parents who are paying as well, even the 50 percent is, and you said earlier, Senator Bruce, that's a lot of money. I'm paying for two kids at 50 percent right now. So so that's the thing. What we're seeing on the ground is there are some issues as we're hearing from from Mary Jo and others. But in most cases, the child care programs are talking to their parents directly, and they're saying, you know, you can pay a hundred percent. And I will tell you almost every conversation ends right there. No, I can't do that. OK, no problem. You can now pay 50 percent and we will get reimbursed and made whole by the state and then they will say, oh, it's a stretch, but I'll do it. Or they say, I really can't. And they either unenroll or they'll do less if the program can allow it. So what we're seeing is most cases programs are able to have this in depth, quite complicated and customized conversation with each parent that goes on that whole spectrum. And I will say the guidance does does clearly say, you know, that, you know, they're encouraged to pay a hundred percent if they can, because the state only has a finite amount of resources. So I do believe it is that scale. But most providers are trying to do best by the guidance and best by their families and worth their finding a middle ground. So I really am curious to hear what Linda, you know, feels as well. But I will say on the ground, that is sort of how that is shaking out, because there are so many options. I will say another thing that you can actually apply for childcare financial assistance right now. There is a period also looking for work that you can if you are unemployed, for example, but your financial situation has really changed. You can apply for CCF AP now, but you'd be using up your looking for work requirements. So Linda, I'm curious about that, but that is something we've we've asked and sort of pushed on. So and we're seeing, in some cases, that being an option. So that's just to lay out sort of a spectrum of how we're seeing it shake out. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but then I will say what's happening to Senator Perrin's question. All of a sudden, the good news is we were really in a place where we were roughly meeting supply and demand for essential personnel. And a lot of that was for because of the stabilization program and because of this added incentive that the state had, you know, and we're getting them emergency supplies. So, you know, 30 percent, I believe, of all childcare in Vermont was engaged in some way, caring for essential personnel, which is really impressive. So there's a success story there. Again, none of this is without its challenges for both the providers and families. This is complicated stuff. This is a pandemic. Nothing is perfect and clean in this. But I think what's happening in the last week or so is that people are starting to think about the reopening and it's caused this sort of next wave of panic. There's also been a lot of misinformation we've seen over the past couple days. It's really been fueling the fire, especially public health misinformation that's been tearing through the community a little bit. So we're starting to offer some webinars with the Department of Health to start to get ahead of some of that misinformation on public health side, how to reopen safely. And, you know, the state is really carefully trying to think ahead. There's this chicken and the egg problem, you know, Senator Parent, about you need to this is so complicated. There's all these questions about can I go back? What does the stabilization program look like when we reopen? Do everyone must reopen? You know, what is the health piece? Can they have access to, you know, the medical equipment that they need to do this? There's so many questions that have to be answered that it's actually really a relief that they're signaling that June might be the time. So we have some time to reopen. But in the meantime, there's a real rub for more people going back to work, needing childcare, before all these questions are answered with reopening. So there's just a real complex situation there. But, you know, I think we're going to see plans, draft plans for reopening that will allow the field to, you know, get some of their questions answered and be part of that in a way so that it actually is rolled out, you know, as smoothly as possible, given such a complicated situation. I'll leave it at that. OK, and I will come to Linda's January in just a second. I just wanted to speak to the idea that the state could use the parents paying 100 percent. I think that is true. But is there another instance? I can't think of one where there's an industry in trouble and we're relying on consumers to pay 100 percent for a service that they're not getting. So we have hospitals around the state that are in trouble and private practices because they're not getting the amount of, you know, surgeries and other things that they would normally get. But we're not encouraging people to go pay 100 percent for services. They're not receiving at the hospital. So, you know, the idea that it's only encouragement to parents to pay 100 percent personally, I think that's that's wrong. It's it's it's far more than I would have ever imagined that we would ask people to pay thousands of dollars for something they're not getting because the state wants to preserve a must keep industry. But to ask them to pay all of it, even in the form of an encouragement, seems to me a mixed message, number one, but number two, just above and beyond, even for parents of means. So, Miss January, jump in anywhere you like. Hi, I'm Linda January, the executive director of Otter Creek Child Center in Middlebury. They did submit some testimony, but I think I will address some of the things that have come up, you know, are my organization. I'm really thankful that my board has taken this kind of per phase and on a month by month basis, and we're making decisions. You know, we had a meeting last night to make our plan for May and we'll meet sometime in May to make our plan for June. But that has really been helpful to think about it that way. And stressful. I also want to thank. The amazingly hard work that CDD is doing right now to keep this field afloat I do not envy any of them. And with that, I also have to acknowledge that, although I'm internally grateful for the financial support, it has been an incredibly frustrating experience to navigate. When that second phase of the stabilization came out, you know, that after April 6th kind of phase, we got the information that there would be a phase two that asked us, you know, if we continue to pay staff and had parents pay 50 percent, they that the state would cover 50 percent. And then if they couldn't pay 50 percent to unenroll families. And then the state would cover 100 percent. And then days later, we got clarifying guidance on that. And that's the guidance that Mary Joe was referring to. And so for me, I kind of took the first bit of information and made decisions based on that. And when I talked to families, I talked about the 50 percent. The guidance around the 100 percent came after the fact for me and was kind of too late for me to make decisions. It also, you know, when you receive an 11 page document of guidance on a program and then talk to your colleagues and realize you still have probably another four pages of unanswered questions. As a collective in Addison County, we kind of decided to interpret the way we thought it was to submit our invoices and see what happens. And if our invoices were wrong, we had the kind of the faith that CDD would reach out to us with questions and ask us about what we were doing and why we were invoicing the way we were. So as a collective down here in Addison, that was kind of the approach after having several weeks of really intense meetings around what are we doing and how do we interpret this and how do we get our answers and we just kind of came to the decision that we just got to. We got to communicate with our families and we got to do what feels ethical and right for families and for our programs and our teachers. And if there was kind of if we were doing it wrong, the state would reach out to us and let us know that we did something wrong. So far, that approach has worked. And so we currently have had five families unenroll who can't or five children unenroll who can't make that 50 percent payment. The one family one of the unenrolled one child and kept the one child enrolled because their older child was also receiving U.P.K. dollars and their their 50 percent co-pay after Universal Pre-K was twenty six dollars in seven cents a week. So that child was affordable to where their infants would have been a hundred and forty four dollars and twenty six cents a week. And that didn't seem affordable for them. So they unenrolled their infant and kept their preschooler enrolled for the time being. The really hard part of the conversations with families was around that unenrolling piece. Families felt very discouraged. They were very fearful about the potential of losing their spot. Just a lot of anxiety around that and getting the spots are not easy. And so now they were in this position of facing a financial hardship and feeling like they were being punished because they couldn't afford to pay that 50 percent. And we have been told that new new applicants to the financial assistant program weren't being processed unless the family qualified for essential care. So that so in a normal situation, if we have a family who's laid off, who can afford, they could apply for financial assistance through the CFAT program and qualify for family support. They would receive subsidy to support them. But because we were told because they aren't essential workers and don't qualify and not receiving essential care, that they wouldn't be able to to receive subsidy at this time. So that was kind of a double whammy for some of our families. For the month of May, we really took a close look at our finances and made a decision to apply for the payroll protection program. And that will allow us to reenroll the five children who have unenrolled into support families to pay for their to support families in paying for their 50 percent, we will still access the stabilization program and use our PPP dollars to help families with their 50 percent and then still continue to pay teachers at 100 percent in June right now is feeling like the Black Lagoon. There are so many unanswered questions. And I'm thankful that the Child Development Division reached out to providers yesterday around a survey about reopening and what that possibly could look like and what are our concerns and fears and is it even possible for us to reopen with the health restrictions or with the health guidelines and restrictions that will be put in place for group care? But it is really daunting to think about and very overwhelming. And I know for us, we will have about, you know, if we're told we can come back in June at, you know, and there's no restrictions on who can access that care, we will have about 12 children that we will have to say that we cannot that cannot return in order to meet the new group sizes. So which also means we won't be able to bring all of our teachers back. So some really big, difficult decisions are going to be needed to be made in the next month. Oh, you're muted, Senator Barouf. Thank you. Mary Jo, before we move on to questions, would you like to speak to any of that? Well, thanks for sharing that. And we have a lot of things in common right now and a lot of feelings. And with the uncertainties and the unknowns, we I think I want to commend the CDD for all of their efforts. I don't want to minimize all you've done to support us and support our teachers. And I hear consistently from our teachers and we have over 120 between the three locations that are just so grateful to still have a job. And our parents are grateful to still have the connections. We've been, you know, doing things remotely and trying to keep connected with the kids as much as we can. Our biggest fears right now are also about going back and doing that safely. And what is that going to look like? And our teachers are asking us and our parents are asking us. And, you know, we too are looking at numbers and ratios. We have, you know, or each of our sites is licensed from between 105 to 176 kids. And we're going to have to cut numbers. And I don't know how to do that if everyone's prepared to come back. And I don't want to wish that some of my families can't return because they either won't have a job to go to and won't need child care or won't be able to afford to come back. So, yeah, I don't think anyone necessarily has the answers right now. I just want everyone to make sure that we as a united front of centers have time to prepare to get everything in order so that when we do go back, it's as streamlined as it possibly can be. One of my big concerns and I'll make this brief is just that the June 1st date. And I know that's still way in the air. I have a number of teachers who have school aged children who have nowhere to send them between June 1st and June 15th because they should have been in public school, so they're all asking me, well, what do I do with my child so I can come back to my classroom? And so just another thing for everyone to be thinking about when we set that date, I know that there's summer camps that are closing and everyone's going to have to reevaluate anyway, but I do know there was no programming set for those first two weeks in June for school aged kids. Thank you. Yeah, that's a good reminder to the committee. That's an issue that we have to have on our radar screen is the reopening of the K through 12 system. I assume everybody saw the announcement from UVM yesterday that they are planning to go back in September. So it looks like September is shaping up to be a much more normal point in time with the various caveats of we don't know what the virus will look like, we don't know what social distancing guidelines will be necessary, but seems like September 1st for higher ed is starting to be a firmer date K through 12. I'd like to have Secretary French in next week to give early thoughts on the reopening of the K through 12 system and what that might look like. Questions for anybody for really any of the witnesses since this is the beauty of zoom, Senator Hardy. Thank you, Senator Bruce. And just a quick note on what you just said about K 12 schools opening. I really agree that we need to get some testimony. And I had a brief conversation with the deputy secretary this morning. So it would be really great to to get testimony as early as possible. So we understand the process they're using for potentially maybe opening schools and then I will just want to thank all the witnesses. And, you know, Melissa and Steve know that I've been in close contact with the CDD about all of these issues and they've been working super hard under really difficult situations since the very beginning of this crisis. So I want to commend them for all the hard work they've done. That being said, it's not been without complications. And I think one of the big complications that I identified really early and as is showing up in this call is that the the guidance changed so quickly that it was often difficult to figure out what was the most recent up to date guidance. So I'm not surprised that there's confusion about this 100 percent versus 50 percent thing and that a lot of guidance early on was not dated. So it was unclear which was the new guidance and which was the old guidance. So, you know, the fact that Mary Jo and Linda both had different sort of interpretations of things is not surprising to me. So I guess my first of all, I want to give a shout out to the Addison County child care providers and Linda being the representative on this call because they've been working really hard together to do interpretations that are consistent across the county. And I think that that's been fabulous. And one of my big concerns about all of this is that it's clearly been inconsistent across the state. And so some parents have had the benefit of their child care center really working with them and trying to figure out what works the best for their financial situation, their family situation and other centers have not been or other providers have not been able to or working with families to do a more customized approach. And looking at this testimony that Deputy Commissioner Berbeco submitted, it looks like 24 percent of children not on subsidies were unenrolled from child care. Is that correct? And if so, that's a huge percentage of kids who had to be unenrolled because their parents couldn't pay the 50 percent. And that's really concerning to me because that means that those kids won't necessarily have a guarantee. And Steve, I'll give you a chance to respond to that, but it won't necessarily have a guarantee of child care when they're when their parents are able to go back to work, even on top of all the complications of how will how will child care actually even function? So this has been a concern of mine from the beginning is that it's this very unequal interpretation across the state and an unequal sort of administration of it across the state so that depending on where you live and who your child care provider is, you're getting a completely different story. And I do want to ask Mary Jo, if she's gone back to these families who have paid 100 percent and said, actually, you could pay 50 percent and the state will pick up the other 50 percent so that those families are not put into this position where they're paying much more than other families. And then just wanted to highlight the the opportunity that Linda mentioned about the payroll protection program and how that is available to child care providers, and I know many in Addison County have taken advantage of that in order to be able to help their families even more and wondering if CDD has worked with child care providers to make sure they're aware of that and help them take get access to that funding. So as my questions, Steve, are about the data. If you could maybe walk us through this data to make sure I'm interpreting it correctly and then what you're doing about the PPP program with providers and then Mary Jo, if you're if you're going back to families and trying to work with them around this 100 percent thing so that there's more equity for families around in your program and then. Ruth, finally, can we let's just stop it at three. OK, all right. So, Steve, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Hardy. So the data that I provided show that or suggest that 24 percent of children who are not on subsidy were unevolved in this time period. And that's with the caveat that this is an incomplete data set. And also when we say 24 percent, that's 24 percent of children who are not on subsidy. So it's not 24 percent of all children were unevolved. Overall, I believe that number is 18 percent. But it's still 706 kids. Yes, absolutely. A lot of kids who just lost their child care. And we are we wanted to learn more about who those children are. And so we looked into, again, the data that we could generate from the data that we could generate from the invoices and looked at different age groups and see to see how this policy affected different age groups. And what we found was that for children who don't receive subsidy and were unenrolled, that the older children were unenrolled at a higher rate than the youngest, the infants. And that suggests that perhaps that the market generally, the child care market, is more favorable to slots for older children than it is to slots for infants. And certainly that's the experience of many people that I've talked with. And my own experience as a parent that I found and many other people have found that it's much more difficult to find a slot for a younger child than is for an older child. So it's possible that some families looked at the on what's going on right now and going into the summer and planning for the fall and looked at possible elementary school plans or more generally the availability of slots for older children being more readily available than for younger children. And Ali made want to contribute a little bit to that conversation because I'm drawing some of my knowledge of it from surveys that let's grow kids has done. Actually, Steve, if you could, because we're we're on a finite schedule, if you could speak to Senator Hardy's question about the PPP program and is your department engaged in actively promoting that to providers? Thank you for that question. I'd like to defer to Melissa and answering that question. Sure. Good afternoon, Committee. Melissa Garrett and the policy director for the Child Development Division. So the payroll protection program from the state's perspective, there's no reason why providers couldn't be applying for that program and potentially using that in conjunction with our stabilization program. What we are not clear on is what the federal parameters around that program are and what those opinions are. And we've actually heard from a variety of different providers, some that are using it and others that opted not to use it based on a different advice that they had gotten from the federal perspective. So we chose to kind of keep ourselves out of that and let that be as this is, in fact, a market based system. Let that be a case by case decision by providers on accessing those funds. I would like to point out a letter that Deputy Commissioner Rebecca and Commissioner Ken Schatz provided for providers to use with their families on the 50 percent aspect of this program in an effort to help providers have a tool that they could use that would help clarify for families what that expectation was when we shifted from phase one of this program to phase two of the program. And I'm not sure, Mary Jo, if you saw that get distributed when we distributed the FAQs, but that is available for you if that's helpful at this point in your communications with families. Ms. Regal Garrett, is it am I assuming right from what you said that that letter does not contain the encourage 100 percent language? I believe that's correct. OK, if I could, M.J., if you would like to answer Senator Hardy's question about am I right in assuming that you haven't gone back to the 100 percent parents, let's call them until you get clarification from CDD to do so. So when we encouraged them in our letter we sent twofold, we did send them clear three clear options as to what they could choose to do. You know, when we took those, the verbiage we used directly out of the information from the FAQs that we received, we also included the link to the letter I think you're speaking about, Melissa, in our letter for parents to read, be able to read as well with that guidance. We did have a number of families reach out. Now we have over, I think, 350 families right now. We didn't call them all personally. Everyone that reached out in response to the email that I sent, I personally responded to, I gave them all my cell phone number and I did talk to a number of them about what their options were when Senator Ruth brought this concern that he had received from a parent that goes to one of our facilities to me that was earlier this week. I've sort of been waiting for this hearing to figure out if we should, in turn, submit another email retracting that guy. I just I send so much information that goes one way and then the other. I just wanted to make sure before I reached out again that I was crystal clear on how you all would like me to do that. But I'm happy to do that, you know, however you see fit. I would recommend a subject line on that email that says state clarifies you pay less. So Deputy Commissioner, if if I could ask as I heard you say earlier that you would be clarifying going forward, if you could keep us in the loop on that and send us any of the new documents that come out, that would be much appreciated. Absolutely. OK. Let's we have it's five of three. We're scheduled to go until three 15. We have another topic related topic. But are there any final questions on this aspect? That is the guidance 50 percent versus 100 percent for parents. OK, so not seeing any. Let's shift a bit. So in the same set of discussion, discussions with the same parent, I talked with that person about whether or not the state could at some point compensate parents for the help that they've provided in stabilizing the child care system. And so we eventually started talking about a tax credit. I was able to talk to the chair of finance this morning about the idea in concept form. And she seemed fairly receptive, asterisk being the state is in bad financial shape, etc. And so on. But the idea of providing perhaps a flat one time credit for parents of so much per child, let's say $500 per child on next year's filing. That was the basic concept. And it would be a way for the state not to fully compensate those parents, but to say we recognize the sacrifice you made to help preserve a system that was essential. So I'm hoping to get we haven't talked about this as a committee. So I'm not sure of my committee members feelings about it. But if we could table that for just a second and maybe hear first from CDD, what your thoughts might be, and then from Ali and the providers. So let's take it in that order. Deputy Commissioner, any thoughts on that? Senator Berth, have you been reading my email? Oh, no. Is this an idea you got under consideration? I well, it's certainly nothing. I don't I don't know that there's anyone on this call that would be against the idea of supporting families with their child care needs, including financial support. OK, fair enough. So CDD has spoken. Ali, thoughts on a. With with the parameters to be worked out. But if we took the basic concept of a of a child care credit for parents who paid 50 percent or more during this COVID emergency to be realized next year's filing. Thoughts on that? Yeah, I wouldn't just really commend you in the committee for thinking about this, because as you just really heard clearly, you know, we all cannot sure coat the fact that parents are really in pain here financially and even 50 percent is a lot. And those who couldn't afford that lost their spaces in some cases. So I do think that you're right to be hitting upon this odd fact because of the nature of the system and the importance of child care. Parents are burdened with basically supporting the system through this when many other industries haven't needed that, but it's been a reality of the situation. So yes, on the concept, the idea of a tax credit, you know, you might think about a couple other alternatives to one being this idea that Linda was mentioned. They they're thinking about the PPP as the way to get those those families who probably need child care the most, who had to unroll because of financial situations back into their program. So this does not help those families. It's almost like a almost like a double jeopardy for them. They lost their spot and now they're not getting the money back. You know, and that's that's one little loophole you might consider that this doesn't really affect the other ideas that you might do instead or in addition, could be something like a scholarship relief fund for families. You could signal the same idea through a scholarship relief fund using maybe CARES Act dollars that it could be used in this way right now. It would fit the profile. So it would be a signal to some of those families that actually you could get some financial relief and get back re-enrolled instead of just losing the space. You could also increase CCFAP reimbursement rates, which is a trend we all need to be thinking about and doing anyway. No, so right now, for example, the 125 per child per week. If you're doing essential care, all the things you just heard from this call about the additional needs and when reopening comes in, you know, the idea of increasing CCFAP would really help a lot of those things, including families, pay and access this. It would be a break to ongoing break to families that could be sort of more concrete as well. And then the other thing you might do is I mentioned the CCFAP. Clearly there are hurdles with that that Linda mentioned, but, you know, you could actually expand the amount of time it's a state decision to expand the amount of time where that you can be seeking the work search eligibility determination on CCFAP. So in other words, you could say right now it's 12 weeks where you can get out there financial assistance if you're looking for a job and unemployed. You could expand that during the crisis. So folks could have access to CCFAP when they're looking for, you know, they're looking for work if they've been laid off and they're actively seeking to look for work. Those are just some little ideas that you could consider maybe in conjunction or instead of a text credit. I think the idea is wonderful, Senator. You hit upon a key problem here, which is that parents are paying a key role and burden in keeping this alive. And I do think there are some slightly loopholes, the lag time and also this this group of vulnerable overmonitors that are losing their space. Yeah. Well, I take your point. I guess the people who lost their slots because they couldn't pay have a different problem, which needs addressing, but, you know, maybe to two targeted solutions operating in parallel. How about M.J. or Linda? Would either of you like to speak to that? Linda, you want to go ahead? Yeah, I would. I think anything to help families would be amazing. And a lot of what Ali said, you know, the increase to CCFAP, not only the increase of rates, but also expanding that eligibility would be huge for both programs and families. I think whatever it is, it needs to be really easy and straightforward for families and providers. So if we're having to provide families with evidence or with receipts or whatever, I think that that needs to be a really easy process with clear guidance ahead of time. So there isn't a lot of confusion and lag time for folks to get the fund. Yeah. And I did have a brief conversation with Abby Shepard, who's on the call about this. And what I spoke about with her is something that would be as easy as possible. So something like a five hundred dollar per child credit that is there, regardless of, you know, so it wouldn't be progressive. It wouldn't be attempting to, you know, I take the point about the money and the eligibility. We could broaden those. But if we do that, we run into questions about going forward on going costs. So this would be a one time attempt to. In a certain symbolic sense, mostly payback parents for helping out during this time. And it would be limited to a one time, a one off deal. So I would like to speak to the committee about this. All the witnesses are welcome to stay. But if you have, I know the CDD people probably have pressing commitments elsewhere. So if anybody would like to leave the call, we're going to have committee discussion for maybe 10 minutes about this topic. But feel free to stay on as well, if you like. And thank you all. Thank you for the time. Sure. I really appreciate it. So committee. That's the the basic concept. And as I say, Abby will have something for us to look at next time. And I take Allie's point about there being other approaches. Feel free to if one of those things she talked about seemed like something you wanted to develop, go ahead and do that. I'm thinking that next week on Tuesday at this time, two o'clock, we have a hearing where we take a look at what Abby's come up with. And we start talking through some of the inevitable complications as you get into the idea. Anybody want to weigh in on just the the concept as as rough as it is, Senator Ingra. Yeah, I think the idea of giving families some kind of relief is is is great. And and would be a good expression from the state. I'm not a big fan of tax credits just in general, because they're they their payments way after the fact of the money that's already been spent, and they're also you know, they're only for people who can afford shell out the money originally anyway. So yeah, so I am not a big fan of tax credits. The the ideas that I heard that I liked more was the scholarship relief fund, especially if some of it, especially that money could come from the federal government. I think that would be great. And then and then I definitely am a big supporter of putting more money into CC FAP, you know, in general and and increasing the the subsidy rates. But I mean, that would be that I hate to only do that for one year and then not have the money, you know, going forward. So if you're really thinking of only like a one time kind of thing, yeah, I would prefer like some some kind of scholarship relief, especially if we can get it out of federal. Yeah, if I think if we can get money out of the the feds, we should we should pump it all in. This would be in addition to to that. Because I don't think, well, it's it's unclear whether it's lost revenue or whether it's and a payment that the state wouldn't have otherwise had to make. So that'll be a question we'll ask going forward. If we if we think about it as a scholarship relief thing, inevitably it would be means tested. All of the aid now, for good reason, goes to families at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. And that's as it should be. I was thinking of this as something that would not be means tested in the way that when you file your taxes, you get a five hundred dollar tax credit for your child, regardless of your income level. And so I was thinking of this as the same sort of thing because the people as we heard who have been asked to pay a hundred percent are the people who can afford it. But, you know, the letters that Debbie and I got from this family make it clear that while their income level is higher than others, they don't feel that they're wealthy enough to pay a couple of thousand dollars for a service they're not receiving. So that's that's a big sacrifice that they've made to the state. This is just an attempt to offer them something back, regardless of income level. But the tax credit would be structured. I mean, you would qualify. You would have had to have your child in childcare, though, right? I mean, not just as a child and you would have to show that you paid more than five hundred dollars during this period. So even if you were a parent who couldn't pay 50 percent, if you did pay five hundred or more, you'd still be eligible. That's my thinking. And I think that should get you down to a fairly low income level. It was another hand I thought. Yeah, Andy. Yeah, no, I commend the idea. I think it's it's the right thinking, but I worry just about making a decision now without having all the data in there. Like what number are we talking about? Is it JFOs working on that? Right. So that would be good. Then so then once you have that number is like, OK, what is the best use of that of that money? And is is kind of fixing this wrong the right thing to do or doing some of the other things that just kind of are supporting the system going forward? They're like two different things. So I don't really see them as comparable, like increasing the CCF AP is very different than kind of helping these families that did something the prior year. And so I don't know how I feel about that. But I kind of want to know what the what number is we're talking about, because I know I know. Yeah. Yeah, and we'll hopefully we'll get a rough on that on Tuesday when Abby comes forward with a draft. This is partly coming from my experience in economic development. I don't know, has anybody in here been on economic development? Corey has. It's a different world. It really is. You know, in here, when we talk about a million dollars or five hundred thousand dollars, it's like, oh, no one would ever give us that kind of money. In economic development, it's like every single session, three million, four million, often in the form of tax credits and tax credits for maybe obvious reasons are easier than increasing the amount that childcare providers get. We're increasing the amount that we feed into pre-K going forward. So. Yeah, so. Sorry. Just just to finish the thought. So in one sense, it's coming from a place of procedurally in the legislature. It's easier sometimes to pass a tax credit. Go ahead, Andy. Yeah, I get that. And I I support tax credits as a way to get positive action to happen. But in this thing, we're we're not changing action. We're not using it the way that try to get economic development or or get people to do something that would normally do or we're trying to fix this wrong or say like, thank you for for making that extra sacrifice. So that's why I'm not sure it's the best use of the money to support the childcare sector, if that's the goal. But if the goal is just kind of like a symbolic nature, I think even said, then then we should just be clear that's what it is. And the only other thing that I kind of worry about is this. I couldn't think of an example right now, but is there another sector like, oh, well, if you're doing that for these, this the sacrifice that these families made, what about X, Y, Z others that made a similar sacrifice? Well, that's what I was trying to think of during the meeting. I can't think of any other place where the state is expecting consumers, you know, it would be like, we're going to lose a lot of different businesses and industries. But nobody is saying that consumers should provide money for a service or a product that they're not going to receive because we want those industries to be there in two months. Yeah, I thought of it. It's like asking us all to buy airplane airline tickets now. Right. We're not flying somewhere. And your lines are OK. I would do that to help the airlines to make the analogy perfect. You'd have to say, we need you to buy a ticket to California. You can pay 50 percent, but if you have the money, it would be great if you pay 100 percent and don't go. No, no, no, no. Yeah, Ruth. And then Corey. Um, yeah, I mean, I agree with Senator Ingram and Senator Perch like that. While I think we should do everything we can to support these families who've had to put out money for something they're not getting during a crisis and that it's entirely unfair. And I, yeah, the airline analogy is great, Debbie. I'm I'm I'm a little I'm concerned about a tax credit as the way to go. I think that in many of our committees and we've had this conversation in here, we've been talking about like, how do we moving forward, fix a system that's broken? And this is one of the most broken systems that we need to really fix is our childcare system. And so I really like Ali's suggestions about trying to put it into a scholarship program or the sea expanding the sea bath. I always get the letters mixed up and potentially using the federal money. I also the the people I'm most concerned about in a lot of ways are the people who were not able to pay and then lost their childcare slots. And and so this wouldn't help them at all because they have not been able to pay the 50 percent and, you know, that's 900 families or something like that and probably even more. And so the scholarship program would help them. And and the increasing the sea bath, even if we can only do it for a year, at least it's it's during a year of when our state is recovering from a crisis. So I think that it would still be worth it. And I am concerned a little bit about the the the the regressivity of just a blanket tax credit because the families who've been able to pay the 50 percent are the families who can afford it the most and the people who haven't been able to pay and who've lost their childcare, the people who haven't been able to afford it. And I and I also just want to caution that the constituents that you guys heard from who were required to pay the 100 percent or did pay the 100 percent, I think they're a minority. I think most childcare providers worked more with their people to not have them pay 100 percent and did what Linda January was saying was done in her her facility was that it was really working with families to help them pay as little as possible, but still manage the program. So I'm concerned that there are programs that asked for 100 percent and don't think it's I think it's an exception. So yeah, no, I agree. I would just say to clarify everybody's lost their slot right now, right? I mean, nobody's nobody's getting childcare except children of essential workers. So everybody's equal. The question is when we start up, will those people actually not have a slot in talking to several providers? It's become clear to me that that their plan, sort of, is to take back the families that they disenrolled before other families. So it may well be that that seven or nine hundred don't lose their slot, although they're technically disenrolled now. I guess all I would point out is that if the system exists when we come back, it doesn't exist because of the people who weren't able to pay. They didn't pay and they may well wind up with a slot when it starts up again. But if the program's there, it's because the people who did pay kept the system up and running and weren't receiving a service. So that's why, admittedly, it's not changing people's behavior going forward and it's not incentivizing what we want. And it's not increasing the health of the program going forward, but it's a way of saying the programs wouldn't be there if these people hadn't paid for a service that they didn't get. So with that, I understand the concerns. I don't think tax credits are broadly favored. I don't think that I think everybody agrees if there's federal money, we want to direct it into the programs in an ongoing way, as opposed to using state money. And I think everybody would like to increase the amount in the CC PIF program. FAP or FAP program. So so what we'll do is next time we'll take a look at the numbers from JFO. We'll look at what Abby's drafted. We'll continue this discussion. I, you know, I'm not wed to anything, except I would like to try to acknowledge that the families that have paid and saved the system in addition to helping families that couldn't pay. So maybe it's two tracks that we're thinking of. Corey, last word and then we'll head out. Yeah, so I'll touch on, you know, Ruth brought up, so I'll expand a little bit. But, you know, with what we're seeing at the state colleges, pre-K and this, I really do think it's an opportune time for us to be looking at the full cradle to career method. And I know people like to look at these as three different silos. I see them as one silo. I think looking at that whole program, if we want to create something new, but short of that, I think, you know, your proposal, Mr. Chair, is probably one of the few that can get through the whole body, if it can get through the whole process. And I think we have to be grounded in the reality of, you know, what can we do to help? Obviously, I'd like to get money in people's pockets tomorrow if we could. But if the best we can do is a tax credit for next year, I still think that's better than nothing. And I want to make sure when we leave, we had home with something, not nothing for these families. So I just would ask the committee to look at through that lens. OK. All right, well, thanks very much, folks. I I appreciate it. I thought it was it was an enlightening hearing. Hopefully we'll have some clarification from CDD and we can take a look at that. But barring that have a good. Well, I guess I'll see all of you at least three times between now and the weekend. So I'll just say until the next Zoom call. Debbie. Yeah, I was just so I was just looking at my email. So we we have an all Senate call at four. Did everybody? Apparently. Yeah, that was that was really a quick scheduling. I was. Yeah, yeah. So Ruth, was there something you wanted to say? No, just that that we would see each other at four. Yeah. OK, see you then. And Jim, see you soon. Abby, thank you very much for participating, Katie. Thank you. Thank you.