[A] new report tracks how the state’s dollars were spent on behalf of young children through age 8.
The “Early Childhood Budget Report FY2013” includes information on childhood poverty statistics in Vermont, nutrition assistance, child care needs, preschool and more. It was prepared by Building Bright Futures (BBF), a nonprofit that focuses on early childhood education.
The report looks at the portion of the state’s budget targeted at Vermont’s youngest residents, their families and expectant mothers.
Julie Coffey, executive director of Bright Futures said the report puts the state’s investments in pre-K, Dr. Dynasaur, prenatal screenings and Reach Up “in the context of the whole state budget.”
The report, to be published annually, tracks the state’s spending on early childhood initiatives in 140 different state programs across 11 state agencies, departments and government divisions.
“This report gives policymakers a good foundation to build a plan for sustainable early childhood investments,” said Jack Hoffman, senior policy analyst at the Public Assets Institute, a Montpelier-based nonprofit organization that worked with Bright Futures on the report. “Going forward, it will be important to have a system to regularly provide these data on an annual basis.”
There is much attention and focus on early childhood needs, interventions, and the societal benefits of stepping in at the earliest stage possible for children at the Statehouse this session. The new report connects the many state efforts already in play, and shows how and where the state is investing its resources.
Jill Remick, a spokeswoman for the Vermont Agency of Education, said the report includes data that illustrates “key connection between early childhood interventions and all other aspects of our state’s well-being.”
“It is a thorough and comprehensive look at the challenges we face, and the investments we make and must continue to make to improve outcomes for these kids,” Remick said.
Among the findings is that the cost of child care is an obstacle for many working families.
Many parents struggle with child care costs in Vermont. Parents typically pay in excess of $8,000 per child per year, according to the report. The state offers child care subsidies based on family income but that subsidy, which is paid directly to the provider, is only about two-thirds of the federally recommended level.
While pre-kindergarten and Essential Early Education programs in Vermont are on the rise, in 2013 fewer than half of the eligible children participated in preschool programs, according to the report.
Nearly 65,000 Vermont children under the age of 13 “live in households where all of the parents are in the labor force — working or looking for work.” That same year Vermont’s regulated child care providers (including licensed facilities and registered home child care operators) had capacity for about 27,500 children.
In FY 2013, more than $800 million in state and federal public dollars were targeted at the focus group: pregnant women and children birth to eight years old.
Half of those funds, $400 million, was spent on K-3 public education, according to the report, “the largest single investment of publicly funded early childhood services in Vermont.”
That figure, for the K-3 public education piece, is 7 percent of overall state spending, which for FY13 was $5.3 billion.
From 2009 to 2013, investments in early childhood increased by about 20 percent, “due to an increase in the number of low-income families needing services.”
The state will next year implement legislation that created a universal pre-kindergarten program across Vermont, a program that was delayed one year, but which many schools are rolling out this year on their own.
The goal of Bright Futures is to increase available services to as many of the Vermont children who qualify for them as possible.
“The economic benefits of investing in early childhood comes in future higher earnings as better educated children turn into adults,” the report states. “In addition, investing in early childhood lowers avoidable costs of child welfare, remedial education, police and corrections, individuals with addiction, and unemployed, underemployed, unproductive and unhealthy adults.”
In a separate announcement the organization said it has made available a series of taped Q&A sessions designed to make it easier for the public to obtain information on Vermont’s new universal pre-kindergarten law passed in 2014, Act 166.
Bright Futures also issued a report noting that the state does not have “reliable or up-to-date data” to help implement the universal pre-K program in Vermont.
