Fiscal Note
No expenditure is required to accept the report, nor does the Resolution commit the City to additional appropriations. Funding for the implementation of the report's recommendations would require additional appropriations and further Council approval via inclusion in future budgets or amendments to the current budget.
Title
Accepting a report from the Early Childhood Care and Education Board and requesting that the Common Council provide funding to support a series of strategies to stabilize and expand quality child care options available to families residing in the Allied Drive neighborhood.
Body
Whereas Dane County Human Services estimates approximately 321 children ages 0-5 in Allied Drive;
Whereas Dane County Parent Council has a waiting list of 123 children who reside in Allied Drive;
Whereas existing child care options located in Allied Drive are not sufficient to meet the need and therefore not sufficient to support the City's goal of opportunity for families in Allied;
Whereas, in many cases, Allied residents are selecting substandard care as the only available option;
Whereas many child care programs serving low income families have become unstable due to cuts in Wisconsin Shares with 13 family child care providers closing their businesses in Allied in 2006 alone;
Whereas it's no longer financially feasible to provide quality child care in low-income neighborhoods because the costs must be paid by parents without adequate funds;
Whereas disruptions in child care funding leads to instability for the child, which has shown to be developmentally harmful;
Whereas research has shown that children enrolled in high quality child care programs were more likely to have finished high school than children who were not in quality programs, less likely to have been held back in school, less likely to have needed remedial help and less likely to have been arrested;
Now therefore be it resolved that the Common Counci...
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