The Early Childhood Subcommittee unanimously advanced two child care bills — one updating terminology for home-based child care and one creating a phased reduction model for child care subsidies — while deferring a third bill on Head Start reporting requirements.
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“She then gets a $2 raise. And let me say that again, she does everything right. She gets a $2 raise. She works hard, she gets recognized, she gets a raise. And with that little bump of income, she is cut off from her subsidy, from her assistance. No warning, no cushion. And just like that, she cannot, she now cannot afford child care.”
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Sign in to subscribePlease take your seats. Hello and welcome to the subcommittee on Early Childhood and Innovation. We are going to go a little out of order today and we're going to start with HB258. Delegate Simons. Oh, I'm sorry. Really quickly, could we take attendance? Could the clerk open the roll for attend? All right, we have a quorum. All right, Delegate Simons, good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair. I am very excited about this bill. I have been working in this space for many years trying to support and grow small home based childcare providers. The reason is that Virginia is facing a serious child care shortage. Eight out of 10 Virginia employers say childcare challenges make it harder to hire and retain workers. And we currently face a statewide shortage of at least 140,000 child care slots. So as I have been working on these small home based childcare issues for the last six years, I have introduced a number of bills focused on increasing their number safety and quality. Under current law, these providers are called Family Day homes, which refers to these small childcare programs operated out of someone's home. But as I've tried to explain these…
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