Children First for Oregon

Budget Ax Aimed At 3 Critical Areas

Saturday, February 18, 2012
Peter Wong, Statesman Journal

ERDC isn’t the only program struggling. Here’s some of what the Statesman Journal had to say:

State-supported day care for low-income families — generally those headed by a single working parent — would drop from a budgeted 10,000 to 8,500 under the legislative rebalancing plan.

To stay at the reduced level, the plan proposes to transfer $6.2 million from $16.6 million in federal child-care development funds carried over by the state Employment Department. Advocates hope they can tap the rest.

“We won’t know exactly how much of that money we could use until after this session is over,” said Stacy Michaelson with Children First for Oregon, which organized a Capitol lobbying effort on Feb. 7. “Our request is that $7 million be held in reserve, pending a final answer from the feds about how that money can be used.”

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