Early care and education advocates are cheering because of a dramatic breakthrough federal budget to support child care and home visiting. I know that many of you urged your Congressional representatives to support these important programs. The bipartisan budget bill passed Congress and was signed by the President. Here are the highlights:

Child care: Congress agreed on increasing spending levels by $5.8 billion over two years, possibly the greatest child care increase in history.  The funding comes through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), doubling the discretionary funding.  If this holds, I estimate it will mean an additional $42.8 million for Wisconsin for each of the next two federal fiscal years (Sept 2017- Aug 2018, and Sept 2018-Aug 2018).  Here’s a summary of child care budget: Fact sheet on the child care bipartisan budget

Long-term advocates were stunned at the progress, as you can see in this column by Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund:  Some Really Really Good News for Children.

Home Visiting:  Federal funding for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program, which expired in September of 2017, was extended for five years, after several efforts were rejected in 2017. Here are some comments from the national Home Visiting Coalition:

“For the past 18 months, you have called, e-mailed and visited your members of Congress, held interviews with the media, engaged in social media, responded to numerous alerts to the field, attended countless meetings and strategy calls and put your heart and soul into nurturing and protecting MIECHV for the thousands of children and families it serves today and those it will help become healthy and prosperous adults in the years to come.”

After many years of disappointments, let’s take time to celebrate! Thank you to everyone who supported these measures. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves to make sure these breakthroughs are fully implemented.

Dave Edie