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Judge Wynne Carvill approved the settlement in a lawsuit filed by Parent Voices Oakland and four California mothers who were told that their child care assistance, CalWORKs Stage 3 child care, would end on Nov. 1.
“We are grateful to the judge for recognizing that these working families need reliable child care, and also need to be informed where to find it,” said Patti Prunhuber, an attorney at the Public Interest Law Project, the lead counsel for the petitioners, in a written statement. “The settlement takes the court’s rulings one step further by ensuring that families will have, at least in the short term, Stage 3 care while they seek viable alternatives.”
Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez called the settlement “good news in tough times, and a welcome early holiday gift” for parents who would have lost jobs and providers who would have closed down.
“Even in the most difficult budget circumstances, throwing 60,000 people out of work, into unemployment or back onto welfare makes no economic sense,” he said.
The suit was brought by the Public Interest Law Project, the Child Care Law Center, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Public Counsel Law Center and Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
The services are meant to assist working parents who have successfully transitioned off welfare but whose wages are still too low to cover child care.
The settlement, which will affect 56,000 families statewide, preserves the services through Dec. 31, according to a statement from the Child Care Law Center of San Francisco.
“We are happy with this decision – it means parents will be able to stay employed,” said Corean Todd, a board member for Parent Voices Oakland, the lead petitioner in the case. “ We need to make sure families know about their rights. We need parent groups, child care agencies, counties – everyone – to work with families to make sure they ask for a screening and get screened in time.”
In Lake County, 73 local families, 149 children and 100 child care providers faced impacts from the cuts to the program, which had $475,458 in funding, as Lake County News has reported.
Judge Carvill had issued an emergency order on Oct. 29 halting Schwarzenegger's veto of the program's funding, as Lake County News has reported.
A few days after issuing that emergency order, Carvill modified the order to require the state to continue Stage 3 child care and to use its “best efforts” to screen parents for alternative childcare services, the Child Care Law Center reported.
Teri Sedrick, co-director Rural Communities Child Care, a program of North Coast Opportunities which administers the CalWORKS Stage 3 program in Lake and Mendocino counties, said they received word on Tuesday that a management conference in the case was set for Feb. 2.
Then the news came on Wednesday of the settlement agreement.
“We were surprised, but at least it will get everyone through the holidays,” Sedrick said.
The Wednesday settlement extends the Stage 3 program through Dec. 31 and requires state-contracted child care agencies to inform families of their right to request a screening for any available child care alternatives, the Child Care Law Center reported.
As part of the settlement, the California Department of Education agreed to a process that allows
any Stage 3 family who asks to be screened before Dec. 10 to be considered for other available child care, officials reported.
“They want them put onto the centralized eligibility list, which we also run in both Lake and Mendocino counties,” Sedrick said.
Families put on that list will compete with other low-income families for services, she added.
The Child Care Law Center said that even the families that request a screening may be put on a waiting list that already has 200,000 children on it statewide.
Sedrick said North Coast Opportunities is hoping to be able to serve local parents with other programs after the Dec. 31 program deadline.
The settlement's term's require that families cut off from child care by the governor’s veto retain the right to return to the Stage 3 program if funding is restored.
At its Oct. 27 meeting, the Lake County First 5 Commission approved a $140,000 bridge loan to help the CalWORKS Stage 3 families from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31, said commission Executive Director Tom Jordan.
He said the decision was prompted by letters from Pérez and Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to the 58 First Five commissions across the state, asking for bridge loans, “all with the idea that the Legislature, with the new governor in place, would pass reinstatement funding legislation and that Governor-Elect Brown would sign it,” he said.
While there is no current statement from Brown about his intentions on such proposed legislation, Jordan said Brown has a history of sensitivity to families trying to become independent.
First 5 commissions have flexibility and can act quickly, said Jordan. Many of the commissions also have reserves that can be called upon “in this kind of unprecedented request,” Jordan said.
Pérez's office reported that more than $40 million in bridge funding has been obtained to ensure the child care services can continue until legislation restoring the cuts can be enacted.
Of that, $6 million of the bridge funding comes from the Assembly, which is contributing funds from cuts made to the Assembly’s own operating budget, and more than $34 million in additional funding has come from local First 5 commissions throughout the state.
Meanwhile, there is pressure on the Legislature and the new governor to enact a permanent solution.
“We are looking to the Legislature and the governor-elect to step in quickly,” said Robert Newman, senior counsel at the Western Center on Law & Poverty. “Otherwise many of these hard-working families will have nowhere to send their children in the New Year.”
Jordan said that with the state having an estimated $26 billion deficit and a constraint against raising taxes, the path of least resistance is to cut services, which has been going on for the last three years.
That led him to wonder when there be no more to cut.
He added that the settlement may be a Pyrrhic victory.
“It certainly has created a tremendous challenge for the majority party,” Jordan said.
Pérez said the decision gives the Legislature time to work on restoring the funding in January. In doing so, they'll continue working with First 5 commissions and children's advocates.
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