ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — Local childcare providers are sounding the alarm after cuts to the state’s Early Learning Coalition.
The Florida School Readiness Program is losing $60 million in this year’s state budget. That includes more than $2 million from Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County’s School Readiness voucher program.
The voucher provides assistance to families under a certain income threshold. State Representative Alex Andrade says the cuts were a fiscal decision by the legislature. Local leaders say children and working families will pay the price in this.
While estimates show the Early Learning Coalition will have to cut some children from its voucher program, hundreds more are already signed up and waiting. The need is evident.
The Foundation of Florida’s Future’s Early Childhood Education is feeling the pressure. Northwest Florida’s Early Learning Coalition’s budget was cut significantly from $18.3 million to $16.3 million.
Executive Director Bruce Watson says the budget cuts put an immediate halt to issuing new School Readiness vouchers, currently serving 2,500 children in Pensacola.
“When you do the math, and all of that is taken into account, we’re about $2 million at this time short,” Watson said, “Which would result if we don’t get any relief from the state of cutting anywhere from 300-500 children.”
The income threshold for vouchers is 150% of the federal poverty level for initial eligibility. Watson says the state has made improvements for parents to meet that threshold in recent years, yet hasn’t provided adequate funding.
More than 300 children are currently on the waitlist to receive a voucher. Right now, there’s nowhere for them to go.
“On the one hand, we increased the number of people we serve,” said Watson. “But not enough to take care of the kids we already have.”
Andrade says the cuts are part of a statewide shift in priorities and that the state is still committed to helping working families.
“It’s definitely a statewide issue. It looks like a cut. It wasn’t a veto, it was a reduction in our budget,” Andrade said. “I think it’s just a realignment of our voucher programs. We didn’t anticipate the number of folks who would be participating in our school voucher programs.”
“What’s the data that resulted in this statewide $60 million cut? I think the data going in was low utilization, less funding from the federal government,” he said. “And I think that was the justification.”
For local daycare providers, it’s not a line item. It’s a real impact.
“We have a wide range of people that use these vouchers,” said Lawanna Hamilton.
Lawanna Hamilton started Funshine Learning Center in 2019. She says there’s simply not enough space to meet the demand for childcare.
WEAR News witnessed that Monday, as 98% of Funshine children are on School Readiness vouchers. Hamilton says it would be nearly impossible for a large number of parents to afford care without it, insisting the industry needs more help from the state level to provide for the future.
“The 98% is because most parents who are not on this program cannot afford to cover the amount that we charge on a consistent basis,” Hamilton said. “We’ve had private pay parents that may not last over six months before they realize it’s not cost effective.”
“The most calls we get about 3-5 per day usually range from infants to toddlers,” she said. “They’re asking if we take the School Readiness vouchers, what times we’re open and whether we have space available.”
Watson says removing a child from the School Readiness program isn’t an immediate action. It would require state approval. That leaves Watson and others hopeful the state will see the need for more childcare and reassess the funding in the future.
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