Our Campaigns

2023-2024 Final Outcomes

Family Fees

• Won a new equitable family fee schedule that went live on October 1, 2023.
• Eliminated $100 million/year in fees for families earning at or below 75% of state median income (SMI) and capped fees for those earning more at 1%.
• Collaborated with Laura Pryor and Erik Saucedo at the California Budget and Policy Center on a joint report, Mending Harmful Family Fees: Expanding Possibilities for California Families that combined qualitative and quantitative data to describe the historic policy change.

Provider Rates

• We were proud to stand in solidarity with Child Care Providers United (CCPU) as they led the effort to win child care reimbursement rate reform based on the true cost of care.
• PV leaders testified in budget hearings and spoke with the media to educate lawmakers on the negative impact of low rates on families’ access to child care.

For more information visit the Child Care Law Center’s 2023 Child Care Legislative Roundup

2022-2023 Final Outcomes

Child Care Spaces

As part of the 2022-2023 Budget agreement, funding for new child care center spaces and child care vouchers in CDSS child care programs are as follows:

• Child care spaces: $22.5 million for a total of about 993 new spaces
• Child care vouchers: $247.3 million for a total of about 22,165 new vouchers
• $992 million was included to pay annual costs for the child care spaces approved in 2021-2022
• $896.9 million for a total enrollment of about 43,406 children in child care

Family Fee Waivers

• Family fees are waived through June 30, 2023!
• $136 million to waive family fees for CDSS child care programs
• 21.3 million to waive family fees for California State Preschool Program

Child Care Provider Benefits

The Child Care Providers – United (CCPU) won the following benefits for the child care provider community:

• $352 million Child Care provider stipends for providers serving children with subsidies

CCPU Health and Retirement Benefits

• $100 thousand contributions to create a health care benefits trust
• $100 million contributions to the health care benefits trust after it is established
• $40 thousand contribution to design and conduct a survey for retirement need
• $100 thousand contribution to establish a retirement benefits trust
• Providers will be reimbursed based on enrollment rather than attendance
• Providers have an additional 16 paid non-operational days for use for COVID-19 until June 30, 2023

2021-2022 Final Outcomes

2020–2021 Final Outcomes

The final budget utilizes CARES Act funds to:

• Provide $73 million for essential worker child care vouchers
• Provide $62.5 million for child care one-time provider stipends for AP and CalWORKS providers
• Provide $62.5 million to pay providers for all children enrolled regardless of attendance (hold harmless)
• Extend the $50 million for Emergency Vouchers through September 30, 2021
• Provide $8 million to extend family fee waivers through June 30, 2020
• Restored the 60-month TANF eligibility clock
• Majority of ECE programs move to the Department of Social Services (Part day and full day preschool remain at the Department of Education)

Due to COVID’s devastating impact on child care, we joined ECE advocates to win an additional $110 million to freeze family fees and support child care providers

2023

AB596 (Reyes):

• Eliminates family fees for those making less than 75% of SMI and begins charging 1% of income when they make above 75% of SMI; pays providers based on the true cost of care; makes permanent “hold harmless” which means a provider is paid based on the maximum number of children they can enroll, not just daily attendance.

SB380 (Limón):

• Eliminates family fees for those making less than 75% of SMI and begins charging 1% of income when they make above 75% of SMI; pays providers based on the true cost of care; makes permanent “hold harmless” which means a provider is paid based on the maximum number of children they can enroll, not just daily attendance.

AB 310 (Arambula): 

• Reimagining the CalWORKs program: Eliminates county penalties if they don’t meet WTW work participation rates and also eliminates all non-federally required sanctions that impact families. Reforms the welfare to work sanctions by capping the sanction amount to 1% of the adult’s portion, limiting sanction to one month, and enables parents to cure sanctions at any time.

SB 227 (Durazo):

• Ensures all workers, regardless of immigration status can access unemployment benefits

2022

AB 92 (Gomez-Reyes): 

• Affordable Child Care Family Fees Act. This bill will permanently eliminate family fees for all families earning below 75% of SMI and charge no more than 1% of a families income for parents making between 75-85% of SMI

AB 2847 (Eduardo Garcia):

• This legislation will create the Excluded Workers Pilot Program, a two-year program that would provide funds to undocumented workers who’ve lost their job or had their hours reduced.

SB 951 (Durazo):

• This bill will increase the weekly wage replacement rate for Paid Family Leave (PFL) and state disability insurance (SDI) to make them accessible and affordable to all of California’s families.

2021

AB 92: California can fund our child care system, but instead relies on child care fees paid by families of color (mostly mothers) who utilize subsidized child care, are low-paid, and who can least afford it. AB 92 heals the harm of an unjust child care family fees system that creates racist outcomes by temporarily waiving family fees through October 2022, followed by an equitable sliding scale.

Learn more about AB 92 here.

2020

SB 1383 (Jackson)Ensuring Job Protection for Paid Family Leave Act extends job protection to 6 million more workers when they take time to bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill family member, or heal from their own serious health condition. The bill was signed into law by Governor Newsom.