CHILD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT
What it is: The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) provided $5 billion in Fiscal Year 2006 to states to help low-income
working parents afford child care and after-school programs for their children.
How it works: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides money to states in three funding streams. The first stream is a discretionary payment
subject to annual appropriations ($2.1 billion in FY 2006), the second is a mandatory payment ($1.2 billion in FY 2006) not requiring a state match, and the third is a mandatory
fund ($1.7 billion in FY 2006) that does require a state match. States can also transfer up to 30% of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds to CCDBG. States
provide vouchers to eligible families to use at any legally operating child care provider or after-school program.
Whom it serves: Families earning less than 85 percent of a state's median income are eligible to receive subsidies for children under the age of 13. In 2002,
approximately 1.8 million children in low-income families received the subsidies, out of the 15 million eligible. Approximately one-third of the recipients use the subsidies
for after-school care. The average subsidy is about $66 a week.
Why it's important: Quality educational child care and after-school programs are proven to cut crime and violence and prepare children to succeed in school.
For example, a study of Chicago's government-funded Child-Parent Centers showed that comparable children left out of this early care and education program were 70 percent more
likely to be arrested for a violent crime by age 18. Another study compared five housing projects without Boys & Girls Clubs to five receiving new clubs. At the beginning,
drug activity and vandalism were the same. But by the time the study ended, the projects without the after-school programs had 50 percent more vandalism and scored 37 percent
worse on drug activity.
Overwhelming unmet need: Approximately 60 percent of mothers with children under six and 75 percent of mothers with children ages 6-17 are in the workforce.
Adequate care for two children in a child care center can cost over $12,000 a year-more than the annual salary of a full-time minimum wage worker. CCDBG is still
so under-funded that it can help only one out of every seven eligible children.
Fiscally responsible: The Child-Parent Center program cut crime and other costs so much that it saved the public $7 for every $1 invested.
Funding level: Discretionary funding for CCDBG has declined since Fiscal Year 2002. In FY07, Congress allocated $2.062 billion in discretionary funding, the same amount as in FY06.
Despite a $200 million per year increase in mandatory funding for FY06-FY10, there remains significant unmet need and overall funding has not kept pace with inflation.
For FY08, the Administration has again proposed $2.062 billion in discretionary funding for CCDBG. By the Administration's own estimates, 450,000 fewer kids will have
access to child care assistance in 2010 than in 2000 without any funding increases.
Recommendation: The House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee is proposing a funding level of $2.137 billion for Fiscal Year 2008, a $75 million
increase over FY07. Unfortunately, when taking into account an inflation increase for FY08, there is a net loss of $19 million. The Senate Appropriations Committee is proposing a funding level of $2.062
billion for FY08, which is the same as FY07, but when accounting for an inflation increase for FY08, there is a net loss of $94 million. FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS recommends that Congress approve a $720 million increase in discretionary funding for FY08 (coupled with a $750 million increase for Head Start) - the funding needed to restore
services to children to the FY02 level. We also recommend that Congress double the percentage of CCDBG funds set aside for quality improvement from 4% to 8%.
For more information, please contact Miriam Rollin at (202) 776-0027
ext. 143 or miriam@fightcrime.org
1212 New York Ave. NW, Suite 300