THREAD: The Governor's May Revision includes more than $1 billion in trigger cuts and spending reductions for California's child care and development system.

#CABudget

This includes cancelled preschool spaces, cancelled child care spaces, cancelled facilities funding, cancelled workforce grants, and - perhaps most painful of all - a 10% cut to provider payment rates.

Read the details here: https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/first-look-governors-revised-2020-21-budget-proposal-covid19/

Even though the @CAgovernor asked subsidized providers to step up to the challenge as essential workers and provide subsidized care to other vital workers' kids, the administration would cut payment rates absent federal $.

In contrast, IL increased subsidized rates by 30%.

Subsidized providers were already woefully underpaid and were struggling to cover operating costs prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more about balancing the books as a child care provider here:

https://cscce.berkeley.edu/why-do-parents-pay-so-much-for-child-care-when-early-educators-earn-so-little/

Providers that accept subsidized vouchers are reimbursed based on the 75th percentile of the 2016 Regional Market Rate Survey. This *should* allow families access to 75 out of 100 providers in their county -- if we weren't using an outdated survey.

A 10% decrease to these outdated rate ceilings would further restrict families’ access to care. In LA County the proposed rate ceiling would provide families access to just 54% of providers in their community based on the most recent survey from 2018.

Providers who contract directly with the state are reimbursed with the Standard Reimbursement Rate. Because policymakers haven't increased this rate annually, it has lost value. Gains were made after the Great Recession, but this trigger cut puts these gains in jeopardy.

. @CalBudgetCenter fact sheet out tomorrow detailing how these cuts to provider payment rates could force providers out of business and limit families' access to care.