On March 13, the Senate passed, 96-2, the Child Care Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) (S. 1086), which would reauthorize the CCDBG program through FY2019. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved the legislation in September 2013 (see The Source, 9/20/2013).
According to the committee report, the measure, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), would reauthorize “such sums as may be necessary” to assist states in: providing high-quality child care, improving children’s school readiness, providing consumer information about child care services, increasing the number of low-income children in high-quality child care settings, and improving the coordination and delivery of early childhood education and care.
Among other provisions, the bill would require states to perform comprehensive criminal background checks on potential and current employees. The legislation would continue to require that child care providers receive at least one pre-licensure inspection and that they undergo at least one unannounced annual inspection for each fiscal year in which they receive CCDBG funding.
The committee report states that the bill focuses on providing high-quality care to infants and toddlers. The measure would make permanent the reservation of program funds for quality-related activities for infants and toddlers and asks states to describe how they will prioritize child care for infants and toddlers.
