As part of Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget proposal, the Early Education Initiative (EEI) Grant program from the Agency of Education’s budget was cut. The reduction was projected to save the state about $1.1 million.
The restoration of $200,000 will only go to early childhood providers who:
• Received funds in the EEI grant program in fiscal year 2015;
• Are located within the boundaries of a school district that will not be giving the private provider tuition reimbursement payments in fiscal year 2016;
• Or are not eligible for funding under the federal preschool expansion grant awarded to the state;
• Or are eligible for funding but have not received their funds on or before July 1.
Programs will have access under Act 166, the state’s mandated pre-kindergarten legislation passed last year, to additional funding sources, but the act’s implementation has been delayed a year, resulting in a funding gap for many EEI programs, advocates said Friday.
The Vermont Early Childhood Alliance proposed a two-year transition, and asked that the state’s EEI Grant Program be defunded by two-thirds of its current budget, or $730,000, left in this year’s FY 2016 budget, and defunding the remainder of the money in FY 2017.
There is access to money through the federal pre-K expansion program to help EEI programs that do not have access to funding, as well, but centers would still be short without some restoration of the state’s share of the EEI grants.
A hoped-for restoration of $300,000 first put before House Ed on Friday was dialed down to the agreed $200,000 and a show of hands was taken, with a majority of the House Education Committee agreeing to that figure.
“These programs serve at-risk Pre-K aged students,” said Matt Levin, executive director of the Vermont Early Childhood Alliance. “These are programs that from our perspective provide essential services.”
The EEI grants being cut in the governor’s budget would have “the effect of being a bridge until Act 166’s implementation occurs,” he said.
“What’s on the table is to completely eliminate the program,” Levin said.
Levin said between 10 and 20 programs that meet the eligibility guidelines would receive grants at the level of state funding approved Friday.
“It’s an important recognition on the part of the committee that an instantaneous end to the program does not really meet the state’s objectives,” he said.
The EEI Grant Program was established by the Vermont Legislature in 1987, and funds pre-kindergarten programs that serve at-risk children, according to the Early Childhood Alliance.
About two-thirds of the state’s school districts opted to delay Act 166’s rollout until 2016 which is why advocates were hoping for two-thirds of the $1.1 million in EEI grants to be maintained one more fiscal year.
In proposing the cuts to the program, the Shumlin administration noted that the program was set up to be a competitive, need-based grant fund, and not a guaranteed annual revenue stream, and also, that with Act 166 rolling out, high quality programs that meet guidelines will have access to additional funding sources.
Grants that centers receive range from $9,500 to $30,000, with about half of recipients typically receiving the maximum grant.
Rep. Alice Miller, D-Shaftsbury, said the $200,000 put back into the budget will rescue more than a dozen and possibly a few more centers that would have been most harmed by the lost funds.
“Some of these are small centers, they just couldn’t manage without the Ed Fund money,” she said.
One of Miller’s constituents, Cinda Morse, executive director of the Oak Hill Children’s Center in Pownal, told her that four centers in Bennington County faced losing the EEI grants, the public school in Manchester, Happy Days in Arlington and Head Start and Oak HIll in Pownal.
“These grants are critical to our being able to serve the needs of at-risk three-year-olds in this county,” Morse wrote Miller in an email. “We all understand that these grants will go away with the implementation of Act 166,” but three of those centers would be losing needed funds this year, she told Miller.
Testifying by phone to the House Education Committee on the issue on Friday was Mark Sustic, director of the Vermont Community Preschool Collaborative, who urged restoration of the grants for this coming year.
Children who benefit from the grants are coming from situations involving neglect or abuse, from poverty, or are not proficient in English, Sustic said.
“If we do the right thing when children are young, they can take advantage of the opportunities that are available to them,” and later costs for those children and society can be averted, Sustic said.
