Relates to notice requirements when funding cuts are made

5 Co-sponsors

• Joseph P. Addabbo Jr.
• Neil D. Breslin
• Suzi Oppenheimer
• Daniel L. Squadron
• Toby Ann Stavisky

BILL NUMBER:S819

Title of bill

An act to amend the social services law, in relation to notice requirements to families and providers when funding cuts are made

Purpose of bill

To ensure that parents have enough notice to plan for the unanticipated loss of child care services.

Summary of specific provisions

Section 1 adds a new subdivision to section 34-a of the social services law, which requires a county to contact OCFS 90 days before they reduce access to child care services. OCFS is required to post a notice on their website within ten days, and shall send notice to providers in the affected district within 30 days. Providers are required to post such notice, and parents will have at least two months to plan.

Justification

In February 2010, with only 10 days notice, the families of 1500 children in Erie County were notified that their child care subsidies would be terminated because the county was lowering its eligibility levels from 200% to 125% of poverty. This short notice left many families in the lurch and required some to leave their jobs and others to remove their children from safe, secure and known child care providers with no time to arrange satisfactory alternatives. Families were left without adequate time to plan or react.

State regulations require that an individual be given 10 days notice of a reduction or discontinuance of social services benefits. That notice provision makes sense if the adverse action is caused by a change in the individual's income or resources. However, it does not make sense when a county makes a dramatic change in child care eligibility levels or its co-payment structure. Counties receive their subsidy funding once a year and it is reasonable to expect that they project the number of families that can be served with the funding that the county is awarded. Such planning is fiscally responsible and is not unduly burdensome.

This bill would require that counties notify the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) when the social services district plans to lower eligibility levels or lower its co-payment structure. OCFS would in turn would need to notify all of the providers that it regulates, the state child care resource and referral organization and the child care resource and referral organizations that serve the social services district that is making the change. This notice would allow families that are losing a critical economic support to plan for the significant challenges that will be facing them when they lose their subsidy or their co-payment increases. It is drafted in such a way so that the notification can take place while the social services district is in the process of getting the approval of the Office of Children and Family Services for its state plan amendment.

The State of Connecticut enacted legislation which provides that parents and providers receive 30 days notice if their subsidy will be ending in order to protect families from the financial distress that results when parents lose their subsidies with very little notice. Connecticut Mirror, June 2, 2010, See HTTP://WWW.CTMIRROR.ORG/STORV/6266/CARE-4-KIDS

New York must protect its families as well.

Prior legislative history

New Bill.

Fiscal implications for state and local governments

To be determined.

Effective date

This act shall take effect on the first of January next succeeding the date on which it shall become a law.