Facts In Action. Associated Early Care & Education.Inside the State House. FY 2002 Budget Includes Major Cuts

As we go to print, the Massachusetts legislature has finally delivered a completed budget for fiscal year 2002. Declining revenues, an economic recession, and a voter-approved tax cut led to a number of serious cuts, particularly in human services. In early care and education and out-of-school time accounts:

After school and out-of-school time accounts sustained major blows, with the elimination of a competitive community-based after-school grant program at the Department of Education, and the elimination of $3 million in the Targeted Cities program - an Executive Office of Health and Human Services initiative providing funds to the eleven Massachusetts cities with the highest numbers of at-risk youth.

The Department of Education's Community Partnerships for Children (CPC) program took a cut amounting to 7.5% of the program's total budget statewide.

After being threatened with elimination in Acting Governor Jane Swift's proposed "recovery budget," the Trial Court Child Care program was funded in the final budget submitted by the legislature, and survived Swift's round of vetoes.

On December 1^st, Swift submitted vetoes, followed by a supplemental budget which restored some of the legislature's cuts in human service accounts. The supplemental budget did not include additional funding for early care and education accounts or out-of-school time. In her vetoes, Swift eliminated language in the legislature's budget calling for the creation of a state level career ladder for the early care and education field. A call to investigate career ladder models was included in the Governor's Commission on School Readiness recommendations, submitted to the Acting Governor in November.

For more information:
on the Fiscal Year 2002 Massachusetts State Budget, go to www.mass.gov/legis/budgets/prevfiscal.htm, or contact Christine Johnson-Staub at (617) 695-0700 x229 or cjstaub@AssociatedEarlyCareAndEducation.org.Editor's Note: this url is no longer active.