Thanks to The Cincinnati Enquirer's Krista Ramsey (“Erasing a decade’s progress,” July 6) and Ben Fisher (“Economy puts pressure on parents, day cares,” July 15) for bringing important early childhood issues to readers’ attention during the struggle to pass a balanced budget for the State of Ohio.

Now the budget decisions are final. Cuts to early childhood education are significant although the news is not all bleak.

No really good choices were available due to the State’s financial crisis but, it seems the legislature and the governor made the best decisions possible for Ohio’s young children, families and child care providers.

Here are a few of the changes:

• Ohio’s Early Learning Initiative, now serving 14,000 at-risk children, will be eliminated at the end of August. About 85% of the children, however. are eligible for other early childhood education services.
• Eligibility for child care financial assistance, now available to working families who earn up to 200% of the federal poverty level, will drop to 150%. But all current families/children can retain assistance until their incomes exceed 200%.
• The assistance program’s payments for full-time care will remain at 25 hours per week—not be raised to 35 hours as feared. This is important for child care providers who would surely have been driven out of business without the ability to pay their fixed costs.
• There will be new incentives for raising quality in child care programs that provide additional reimbursements for each subsidized child depending on a program’s quality rating:  5% more (one star), 10% more (2 stars), 15% more (3 stars),  and maintaining quality achievement awards for centers who earn star-ratings
• College scholarships to help child care providers pay for continuing education will remain.

4C will lose funding as part of the cuts to the early education budget. But it could have been much worse for our community’s children. The important thing is to keep early education as a priority and make sure full funding is restored to effective programs as soon as possible.

Sallie Westheimer
Executive Director, 4C for Children

4C for Children, the pioneering leader, advocate and resource for early childhood education and care in this region since 1972, serves 23 counties from offices in Cincinnati, Dayton (Ohio) and Newport (Kentucky). Each year this not-for-profit agency assists over 8,000 families of all incomes levels in finding and choosing quality child care; educates over 20,000 child care providers in its workshops and trainings; works to increase the supply of high-quality early education and care in the region; and advocates for children and families at the local, state and federal levels. For more information, visit www.4cforchildren.org. 

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