Agenda - 01-28-2010 - 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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7 The proposal cites the need for universal pre-kindergarten based on achievement gaps between majority and minority children and children of wealth verses children of poverty. There is no doubt that these achievement gaps exist and that better education for all children is one of the solutions to the problem. In Orange County many of the low- income three and four year olds are already in quality child care settings due to federal, state, and county dollars for subsidy. Unfortunately, there is not enough money to fund all of the eligible children, forcing many families to wait for a year or more to access this subsidized child care. If the county wanted to funnel more money into child care, it could expand its current role to manage additional programs. The county currently administers more than $4,000,000 annually in federal funds for child care subsidy. Child Care Services Association administers more than $1,000,000 in state funding through Smart Start for a similar program. The two programs have overlapping costs for administration, maintain separate waiting lists for services and have different eligibility criteria creating inefficiencies. In a failed 2008 bid to administer Smart Start subsidy, the county identified $200,000 of potential cost savings for merging the programs. This use of public resources should be addressed before any additional money is funneled into a private child care system. In summary, staff finds the ideas and arguments behind universal pre-kindergarten to be very persuasive. There is clearly an identified need for high quality early education to complement the high quality K-12 education available in Orange County. However, since this would all be new money, the high costs make this proposal problematic in the current environment. If the Board of County Commissioners is interested in pursuing universal pre-kindergarten at a future date, work should be done with the school systems to calculate costs of a school-based model, and all options for implementation should be explored. County agencies involved in child care, including the school systems and the Department of Social Services, should be viewed as critical to any determinations about how to funnel additional money into child care. Heretofore mentioned, there are opportunities to increase the efficiency of existing money in subsidized child care through Smart Start that should be pursued before any additional funds are given to private groups or agencies. County staff should be very involved in any endeavor that involves this level of commitment of county funds. County resources, including staff, are currently stretched to the limit making it difficult to recommend the implementation of another task force at this time. This item could be referred to the Social Services Board for further exploration, however, the state is currently doing an analysis of Smart Start and More at Four, two state-funded school readiness programs, and the county may want to wait on the outcome of that research before spending more time on the issue.