Lawmaker not surprised by low rank in child issues

Friday, Oct. 22, 1999 | 11:21 a.m.

Child care

Nevada ranks near the bottom of a national study on federal subsidies for child care. Here is a breakdown of the percentages of children helped in the 50 states and District of Columbia:

West Virginia (24 percent), Vermont (22), Oklahoma (21), New York (18), North Carolina (18), Michigan (17), Louisiana (16), Tennessee (16), Kentucky (15), Massachusetts (15), Rhode Island (15).

Missouri (14), Pennsylvania (14), Illinois (13), Washington (13), Arizona (12), Delaware (12), New Mexico (12), Washington, D.C. (12), Alaska (11), North Dakota (11), Georgia (10), Idaho (10), Ohio (10), Utah (10), Wyoming (10).

Alabama (9), Colorado (9), Minnesota (9), Montana (9), New Hampshire (9), New Jersey (9), South Carolina (9), Hawaii (8), Maryland (8), Nebraska (8), Oregon (8), South Dakota (8), Florida (7), Texas (7), Virginia (7), Wisconsin (7).

Connecticut (6), California (6), Iowa (6), Kansas (6), Arkansas (5), Nevada (5), Indiana (4), Mississippi (4).

Maine.

One Nevada lawmaker says she is "not a bit surprised" that the state ranks among the lowest in providing child care assistance for low-income working families.

Assemblywoman Vivian Freeman, D-Reno, has tried during her 13 years in the state's lower house to pass sweeping child care legislation. Her latest attempt this past legislative session also failed.

"I'm not a bit surprised because Nevada in many areas is not a child friendly state," Freeman said in response to a report released this week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which found that just 10 percent of the nearly 15 million low-income families eligible for federal child care assistance received it in 1998.

Nevada finished near the bottom at 5 percent, a single percentage point above last place finishers Indiana and Mississippi and 19 percentage points behind the No. 1 state for providing federal child care assistance, West Virginia, the report said.

"When I bring it (child care reform) before the Legislature, there seems to be very little interest," Freeman said. "This issue comes down to the fact that there is no federal policy for child care and, if you leave it up to the states, the job does not get done."

During the past legislative session, Freeman's Child Care Quality Act made it through the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee that she chairs but died when it went into the finance committee. The measure, modeled after legislation passed in New York, would have provided funding for additional child care staffing.

The U.S. Health and Human Services report is the latest in a series of reports this year that has cast a shadow on the state's child care industry:

Two UNLV reports released in January -- "The Nevada Child Care Strategic Plan: Improving Quality Child Care" and "Effects of Additional Child Care Subsidies" -- found that day-care centers in Nevada are lacking in quality of care. UNLV surveyed 1,048 centers around the state before reaching that conclusion.

Working Mother magazine ranked Nevada 47th in the nation for child care. The magazine found that only six centers in the state were accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

The UNLV report recommended that Clark County day-care centers provide 339 more teachers. It also found that four of every 10 child-care providers, either had no high school diploma or were just high school graduates.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, in releasing the national report Tuesday in Washington D.C., blamed the problem on inadequate funding. She called on Congress to put more money into the Child Care and Development Block Grant program, which provides money to states to help subsidize child care.

However, while states already are allowed to assist families that earn up to 85 percent of the median state income, many limit their assistance to families with incomes below 50 percent of the median income.

Without assistance, low-income working families spend between 24 and 45 percent of their income on child care, Shalala said. With aid, that amount would drop to between 1 percent and 7 percent of their incomes, she said.

"We are not talking about welfare recipients, but rather poor working people who pay their rent, buy food and have little left for child care," Freeman said.