It’s been more than four years since child-care workers threw their support behind the first election of Gov. Peter Shumlin.
The large group of independent child-care workers backed by the American Federation of Teachers wants the ability to collectively bargain for better subsidies from the Department for Children and Families.
Despite persistent agitation since 2010 — rallies, letter-writing campaigns and lobbying efforts — child-care workers have yet to see a bill allowing them to unionize signed into law.
Child-care providers are hoping to tag team on the success of independent home health care workers. Last year, lawmakers gave home health care contractors the green light to begin a collective bargaining process with the state.
But, unlike the home health care bill, which passed easily last year in the House and the Senate, child-care unionization has been a fight from the get-go. It narrowly passed the House in 2010, and has been mired in Senate negotiations ever since.
Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, the champion of S.316 in the Senate, says this time he believes the legislation will be discussed on the merits. Previously, the bill has been sidelined and deemed non-germane.
“This is the first time we’re going to get a vote on whether this should be the policy of the state, and I think we have the votes,” McCormack said.
But money and politics remain sticking points. The pro-labor child-care workers are at odds with another group — Vermonters for the Independence of Childcare Providers — who are lobbying hard against the bill.
And Shumlin who has repeatedly headlined events for the American Federation of Teachers at the Statehouse and elsewhere professing his support for the cause and early childhood education in general, didn’t back up his promise this year with a budgetary proposal.
Shumlin put no money in the budget this year for negotiating a contract with child-care workers (estimated pricetag, $150,000 to $500,000).
If S.316 passes this session, the governor’s office would negotiate with providers in 2015 and include more money in the budget for fiscal year 2016.
In the meantime, childcare providers continue to receive depressed subsidy rates.
Though the governor put more money in the STARS (STep Ahead Recognition System) quality improvement certification program, he did not set aside funds for overall increases in subsidies, which could cost as much as $2.5 million.
Subsidy rates for child-care providers have not kept pace with cost of living increases and have stalled at 2008 levels, according to Reeva Murphy, who runs the program for the Department for Children and Families.
Bringing subsidies up to 2012 levels would cost $9.6 million, according to an estimate from the Vermont Joint Fiscal Office.
Murphy said she pressed for a 3 percent increase in subsidy rates for the 2015 fiscal year budget, but her request “fell to the (cutting room) floor.”
Last week, members of the Senate Appropriations Committee were flummoxed by the Shumlin administration’s budgetary omissions.
Jeb Spaulding, the secretary of the Agency of Administration, told the committee that the Shumlin administration supports the child-care unionization bill without any “ifs ands or buts.”
Spaulding then explained that his agency would absorb the cost of negotiations with the child-care workers. He did not address the potential cost of increased reimbursement rates to providers.
Sen. Diane Snelling, R-Chittenden County, questioned the Shumlin administration’s approach.
“If the governor supports this bill so strongly and thinks it’s the right thing, he could easily decide to make it a priority in the budget,” Snelling said. “Instead, what we’re facing is a negotiation, which will result in the same thing.
“It strikes me as an odd way to get things done that you think are a priority,” Snelling added.
Sen. Jane Kitchel, chair of Appropriations, echoed Snelling’s sentiments in an interview with Murphy. Kitchel said it appeared the administration was supporting the legislation on the one hand, and on the other, claiming that the bill is “forcing it to do something it otherwise wouldn’t be willing to do.”
In comments directed at Murphy, Kitchel said: “I mean you control the subsidies, you control the budget recommendations … there is a certain irony here around why this is needed. It’s to protect, I guess, the providers of services under state programs from inaction by the state.”
“At least we were able to sustain levels for the STARS participation,” Murphy said. “The governor supports that ongoing work.”
Murphy told the committee that child-care providers who depend on subsidies to support their operations often have insufficient resources to provide an optimal level of care for children. The state has seen an overall reduction in the capacity of licensed child-care providers even as they have increased quality programs through STARS, she said. Even very good providers are struggling to stay in business.
“If Commissioner Yacovone was here, he’d say that we’ve tried to get the subsidy rates up,” Murphy said. “It’s really hard with all the other competing, with the other needs in government, and he feels that having partners to try to increase the subsidy rate is not a bad thing. It isn’t that we wouldn’t be unwilling, or we don’t want to, but sometimes it’s a heavy lift.”
