Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 7 on Accountability and Oversight

This is you killing everybody, if I recall.

Unless I'm still in bed.

That one. There we go. Okay, could we have the witnesses come up to the Dias, please? To the witness chairs, when you have one. There she go. She's getting herself organized.

Oh, Senator Mitchell, Aaron wanted you over here.

All right? Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Assembly Budget Subcommitee on Accountability and Oversight. This is the first of many hearings we're going to hold this year to discuss various impacts on the state budget, including federal actions that reduce revenue and limit program access.

Membership of this Committee is appointed by the speaker and can change the for each hearing. This allows us to leverage the many interests and expertise of the entire Assembly body. I'll give opening remarks. If the chair and vice chair are here. I'll ask if they have any comments and then quickly transition to the panel.

And I ask that Members of the Committee wait until after the panel presentations to ask their questions. Members of the public will have an opportunity at the end of the hearing to share their comments. I'll now start by giving a few opening remarks. Childcare is not a luxury in California. It is economic infrastructure.

It allows parents to work, businesses to operate, and kids to thrive. I have a lot of personal knowledge about this subject because for more than 20 years, I owned and operated both a small and large family child care home that eventually grew into a child care center for 45 children.

I know firsthand, both as a parent and a preschool provider, how critically important quality, affordable child care is to California families. Recognizing the importance of investing in early child care and education, California has tripled our childcare funding in just the last decade.

These investments are critical to working families, developing young minds, and strengthening both our current and future economy. Improving access to quality childcare has also been a bipartisan issue. In fact, some of my colleagues on the dais from the other side of the aisle have appropriately been staunch supporters of expanding child care in California.

While there's more work to be done to ensure every family can afford quality child care, we have made amazing progress in California. Today, 487,000 California children and their parents depend on the state's child care and preschool programs.

More than half a million working parents are able to go to work and know their children are in safe, licensed, quality child care. Every dollar invested to support children and families generates almost double in increased economic activity.

Despite the enormously positive economic benefits of this investment, three weeks ago, with just a stroke of a pen, the Trump Administration put our entire childcare system at risk by freezing important child care payments targeting only blue states like California.

The Trump administration's actions will push families into chaos and and force parents to make the impossible choice between their jobs and their kids. California's $10 billion child care system is built on an interconnected and delicate balance of federal and state funding.

This funding system was specifically designed for better access and flexibility to help best meet parent needs and provide appropriate child development. For many California families, child care costs are one of the primary drivers of the affordability crisis.

Child care is a family issue, a workforce issue, and an economic stability issue, the very issues that the Trump Administration promised to address. When child care becomes unaffordable or unavailable, parents are forced out of the workforce and the entire cost of living crisis gets worse.

One of the things I treasure most about my experience operating a preschool is, is the deep connections I made with the families and children in our school. I've maintained lasting friendships with the parents we serve that continue to this day. Yes, can anybody hear me out there? Maybe I need to get closer.

Tom, thank you.

When I see the children from our school who are now young adults in their 30s and often parents themselves, and they tell me how fondly they remember their preschool experience at our school, I'm very proud.

I know how critically important their first experience, learning in a safe and caring environment, has been to their lives and in turn, to their own children's lives. The decisions we make today have impact now and for generations to come, so we must be very careful in our decisions. Today we'll hear from a panel of experts.

Their input and feedback can be helpful in assessing impacts of these federal actions and showcase ways California can continue to protect families. We'll start with our first witness, which is Dylan Hawksworth Lutzow from the Legislative Analyst office.

Thank you, Dylan. Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name is Dylan Hawksworth Lutzow with the LAO. We were asked to give a brief description of childcare funding and the portion of the funding that would be affected by the federal freeze.

In the 2025-26 budget, California provides $5.5 billion for child care programs and another $2 billion for related support services. Among the three grants the federal Administration is trying to freeze, there is the Child Care Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Social Services Block Grant.

California child care programs receive approximately $1.1 billion from the Child Care Development Fund and $300 million from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. This accounts for roughly a quarter of the funding used for state child care programs.

These funds are intermingled with state funds in the sense that there are not any individual child care slots that are only funded by federal dollars.

And lastly, we will note that there are other federal funds that go towards child care programs or child care spending, including Title 20, Title 4e, the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Head Start that are not currently on the list the Federal Administration is trying to freeze.

That concludes our comments and I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. We'll hold the questions till the end.

Our next witness is Jennifer Troia from the California Department of Social Services.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Lovely to be here with you this morning. As you heard, my name is Jennifer Troia and I'm the Director of the Department of Social Services. Before we dive into any questions, I just want to set a brief foundation and vision for the child care and development programs at cdss.

Our programs provide a variety of state subsidized child care services and quality improvement plan activities to ensure that children have access to equitable and stable childcare and development opportunities.

We provide services through voucher based programs which provide certificates for families to obtain care in a setting that best fits their needs, and state contracted direct service programs for child care centers to provide a fixed number of child care slots for eligible families. Child Care is a Smart investment.

Every dollar invested in high quality child care yields 7 to $12 in social returns, including long term impacts on educational attainment, employment and earnings both for the children who attend and their families.

In recognition of the critical and positive impacts of early care and learning on children and families, California has made historic investments in childcare and development programs in recent years to help children and families thrive. In the last five years, we've nearly doubled total funding for child care and development programs.

We've increased the maximum number of children served annually from 294,000 in 2019 to more than 350,000 per month. Currently, we negotiated our first and subsequent Memorandums of understanding between the State and the Child Care Providers United Union and we've taken initial steps to unify our reimbursement rate structures.

In addition to California's multibillion dollar investment in subsidized child care, we also draw on three sources of federal funding. The main sources are the Child Care and Development Fund, the Social Services Block Grant and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Block Grant which also funds our CalWORKs, Welfare to Work and other programs.

CDSS is designated as the Child Care and Development Fund lead agency and administers these programs in accordance with applicable federal laws and regulations. On January 6, the Administration for Children and Families sent correspondence to California freezing, ccdf, TANF, and the Social services block grant funds.

Similar letters were sent to four other democratically led states, including New York, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. The harm from the government's freeze was felt immediately. It caused confusion among stakeholders, families and caregivers. California and the other four states took immediate action to protect these funds.

On January 8, 2026 the five states jointly filed a request for a temporary restraining order, which was granted the very next day. The temporary restraining order remains in place today and we expect the court to rule on our motion for a preliminary injunction in the coming weeks.

Thanks to this quick action in court to protect California's child care funds, the frozen funds have continued to flow.

If we had not taken quick action across those federal funding sources, the federal funding freeze could have impacted 3.2 million Californians, including children, older adults, domestic violence survivors, lower income families and individuals with disabilities who rely on the food, shelter, childcare and other critical services these federal funds help California to provide and approximately $5 billion in total annual federal funds.

The litigation is ongoing and we intend to do everything we can to protect California families, children and child care providers from the Federal Government's chaotic and harmful actions. I will close by quoting the Secretary who recently said, I can promise you this, California will continue to fight to protect the most vulnerable among us.

We will lead with our values and not with fear. And we will never forget that behind every policy, every program and every decision is a human being who deserves dignity and justice.

Thank you very much, Ms. Troia. Next we have the Honorable Supervisor Holly Mitchell. Thanks for being here.

Good morning all, and thank you. It's great. I'm having a little flashback sitting here in the hearing room. It's really great to be here. I really appreciate being invited. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I had no idea about your robust path in the childcare delivery industry. I have to tell you, I'm so impressed to hear that.

When I think through the number of people who have served in these hallowed halls, it includes myself and former Senator Kam Lager Dove who came from Crystal Stairs. We spent a decade in our professional careers working there. Former Speaker Rendon who served at maof.

And so the childcare industry does well in terms of preparing people to serve in the California Legislature. I hope there's a future Parent Voices or Community Voices Member who will consider running for office because it was sitting in a budget hearing as CEO of Crystal Stairs, Mr.

Chair, that I got mad and literally made my decision slamming on the desk that I was going to run for office. Because it was a time such as this where the Legislature was considering and ultimately did cut a billion dollar out of the subsidized child care arena.

And it was my colleagues in the women's caucus and I that fought my entire 10 years here in the Legislature to try to get it back. But what I will never forget are the children who didn't wait for us to do that. Kids don't wait.

The three year olds, the two year olds who didn't get a slot in a childcare setting, didn't wait for us to figure it out. So those unmet needs continue to haunt me and I implore you all to think about those young people who don't get a do over.

They don't stay to waiting for the adults to figure it out. So I'm really pleased to be here today and thank you so much for the invitation. Again, we're facing an unprecedented and deeply concerning action by the Federal Government that threatens the basic safety net for families across this state.

California has made historic investments, as you've heard, in early care and education and those gains tragically are at risk. Childcare providers depend on consistent on time payments to remain operational. Providers cannot operate on uncertainty. Rent, payroll and staffing costs continue regardless of reimbursement delays.

The temporary stay order by the court gives us breathing room, but it's not a solution. The solution is preparation, coordination and to safeguard the people who rely on us. Families cannot suffer because of politically motivated actions from our Federal Government.

You know, unlike the Great Recession when I first came to the Legislature, this isn't an economic issue, it's a political decision. It's a manufactured crisis that children will suffer as a result of. Child care. Disruptions directly affect workforce participation, particularly for women and single parents.

Even brief disruptions create immediate financial deficits, missed reimbursements, payroll shortfalls and stalled case processing, forcing providers to reduce capacity or close. These disruptions prevent parents from working or going into school, destabilize family income and compound pressure on an already fragile and under resourced childcare network.

I'm proud to have now served as a Member of the LA County Board of Supervisors. I'm vice chair this year, currently chair of CSAC's Health and Human Services Committee. So I've got to talk a little bit about impacts to counties, to local government, but first of all, equity and access concerns.

You know, communities are already experiencing childcare deserts. The industry has never fully recovered from COVID and there were deserts before COVID in terms of access and affordability. So low income and communities of color are disproportionately impacted.

The freeze threatens progress made through these historic investments and I just fear that we take two steps forward, we're pushed five steps back. So key points I hope that you all will consider. You know California already has robust oversight and monitoring and fraud prevention systems that are already in place for child care programs.

So this notion that fraud detected in some other state means fraud is rampant everywhere is just a false number. So blanket federal withholding penalizes compliant states and local jurisdictions for isolated incidents elsewhere. State-level mitigation strategies may be necessary to stabilize providers and protect families while federal issues are resolved.

The county of LA frankly is not in a position to backfill behind lost federal dollars based on our board budget policy. And additionally the county is threatened on multiple fronts. For our own federal revenues, which comprise 13% of our annual budget, which exceeds $55 billion, we also have our own budget constraints.

We have self imposed eight and a half percent curtailment on all county General Fund expenditures or about $230 million that we have to solve for. What's unique about this crisis this time is LA County typically has three main revenue sources.

The state you comprise about 23% of our budget, federal again about 13% and our locally generated revenue about 64%. And we typically have had a fiscal crisis on one of those funding sources which allowed us to find safe haven in the other two. But these past two fiscal years we've been experiencing fiscal instability from all three sources.

You can certainly appreciate what the natural disasters, the fires, the ICE invasion on our county have done to our local economy. And so we're looking at cuts from the federal, state and our own instability in terms of our own fiscal source. It's a unique situation. We found ourselves on a county that historically never had to do layoffs.

It's unprecedented times for us as well. LA County Department of Public Social Services, who administers our stage one contract on average serves about 14,000 cases, which again falls within the responsibility of our Department of Public Social Services. With a freeze, we are looking at those families not being stable like all good budget hearing panelists should.

I did a little extra homework, reached out to my own former agency, Crystal Stairs. Given their size and the fact that they provide critical services to the vast majority of my district and found out that the impact of the federal freeze would directly impact over 16,000 families, 27,000 children and over 10,000 providers.

That's one of I've lost track of how many AP&R and R agencies are across the state. So that's just the example of one agency in one county. And so clearly we have a crisis at hand. I'm very glad to know that the Legislature is having this conversation. As you said, Mr Chair.

Child care is not an optional infrastructure. It is essential to our economy, to our workforce, and the well being of of our state's most important delicate constituency, our children. Louisiana County has already taken difficult fiscal actions and does not have the capacity to absorb further disruption without real harm to families and providers.

So I'm here to truly urge the Legislature to continue your leadership by safeguarding child care funding, supporting counties through this uncertainty, and and ensuring that working families are not collateral damage in federal policy decisions beyond their control. Thank you for your continued commitment to California's children and families and for the invitation to be here today.

Thank you so much, Supervisor Mitchell, and thanks for the point that the kids can't wait while the adults figure things out. Next we'll have Amasha Griffin from the Child Care Providers United.

Greetings Assembly Budget Subcommitee Members. My name is Amasha Griffin. I come to you as a child care provider of 24 years in a dire moment where child care funding and the well being of thousands of children hangs on by a thread.

My name is Amesha Griffin and along with being a longtime child care provider, I am a proud Member of SEIU Local 99 and Child Care Providers United. I am also a mentor to the parents of the children in my care. I'm a mother and now a grandmother.

Many of the children I provide for come from single income households below the poverty line with parents trying to make ends meet as security guards, grocery clerks, restaurant staff and other service industry jobs. Here's what a day in my shoes looks like. I usually get up about 4:30 or 5am to prep for the day ahead.

Children start arriving between 7 and 8am and I spend the whole day teaching, providing nutritious meals and making sure my kids with developmental issues receive the extra support they need. Then, after parents come to pick up the kids, it's time to clean curriculum development paperwork and get ready to do it all over again the next day.

These last hours are off the books, unpaid. The concept of 15 hour days is not new to child care providers and we have been fighting tooth and nail to improve the payment structure that is currently in place, which does not compensate us fairly for the work we put into nurturing our communities.

The footing child care providers stand on is already shaky, but if the federal funding freeze goes through, the effects will be devastating. If I lose funding now, I will have to pull my daughter out of her senior year of college, and I will have one month before I have to shut my doors.

And there are many child care providers who have even less time than this. Being a child care provider is my life's work. If my facility closes, I don't even know what is out there for me. I am invested in the educational development of our children and I always will be.

But a freeze on child care funding will affect more than just me and fellow child care providers. It will be a domino effect basically. First child care providers go, then the children in our care have nobody to help them thrive.

The parents of those children lose their jobs because they have to stay home for their kids because there is no childcare. Unemployment goes up, causing further disruption across our local communities and weakening our state's economy.

Then the children of today grow up and tomorrow they aren't equipped to make good choices and lead independent lives because they didn't get the tools that were required. The cycle continues with CDSS, CDE-funded programs and Head Start funded, woven together with federal funding.

I urge you to consider what's at stake here and to do these three things. Number one, make sure unspent money in the budget gets rolled over into the state general fund so providers have access to to emergency funds.

Number two, take a public stance in your capacity as an elected official and urge the Federal Government not to change funding rules that are already in place. Number three, communicate with your California delegation colleagues in US Congress and work together to get congressional leadership to speak up about the child care funding freeze.

It is imperative that working class parents have early education programs available to help their children thrive. Please do not let our communities see this devastating effects of the child care funding freeze. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you, Ms. Griffin. Appreciate your remarks and your personal experience too. Next we have Marilynda Bustamante from Parent Voices Los Angeles.

Good morning, Chair Subcommitee Members. My name is Marilynda Bustamante and I'm a single parent to my daughter Serenity, who's two years old. We live in Santa Ana and I'm a parent advocate for Parent Voices Los Angeles. I'm currently a Master of Social Work student at the University of Southern California. I'm in a really amazing.

And I saw you speak and say it again. I'm in a really amazing position because I have the lived experience of going through multiple different systems that some of my future clients could be facing. While I was pregnant with my daughter, I was homeless and I was living in a shelter. After that I Went through rapid rehousing.

After the rapid rehousing program, I was in a and before the rapid rehousing program, I was in a residential treatment program. All of these experiences give me a perspective that not a lot of Clinicians have. I've lived and I understand firsthand what it feels like to feel like no matter what you do, there's no way out.

In addition to going to school, I have an internship at the Senior center in Garden Grove. I support low income and vulnerable seniors facing high acuity mental health challenges. It's an unpaid internship and I do that 24 hours a week. I do individual counseling, group counseling and workshops.

Actually recently led a four part workshop series on grief and loss that was associated with Dia de Los Muertos culture. And that's really, really important because I got to connect evidence based practices that I'm learning in school that's culturally relevant to the clients that I was serving.

All this to say I've overcome a lot, but I'm also excited about my future and none of this would have been possible without the support of childcare and CalWORKS. Being on CalWORKS, there's quite a few different programs that I get to tap into.

I get $900 a month in cash aid, an additional $30 in diapers, and I participate in the home visiting program. This program teaches parents how to be quality caregivers and it provides education on how to incorporate play so that they can learn and meet developmental milestones.

They also offer up to $1,000 over the course of the first two years of your child's life. And that's to help with needs like diapers, parent education, safe car seats, things like that. Through CalWORKS, I also participate in individual therapy.

I meet one on one with a counselor and to me that's really, really invaluable because with therapeutic support, I get to work through some of the really difficult emotions that come with being a single parent, being a first generation college student, juggling my internship work and trying just to be the best mom that I can be.

I also received childcare through calworks and honestly, that's the best part. I chose to have my sister as my childcare provider because everything that my daughter and I have been through together, I didn't trust just anybody to watch my child. My sister has a three year old daughter, my niece Sage, and she and Serenity are best friends.

They get to do fun things together like baking sourdough bread, they get to garden in the backyard, they go on daily walks to the park and they just get to grow up together.

I also get to give the gift of the home visiting program to my niece, and so they can both develop, they can both benefit from the developmentally appropriate interventions and play methods that I'm learning. My daughter is really intelligent. She's either at or above her milestones.

And I think that a big part of that is that she gets the scaffolding of being with my niece, who's 3 years old, and she gets to learn alongside of her. I'm so proud of her and I'm so happy with my childcare situation.

So when I heard that the current Administration is trying to freeze funding for childcare, it made me feel like everything that I've worked so hard to build is about to crumble. At a minimum, it would mean that I would have to take a leave of absence from school, potentially drop out.

I rely on a stipend through California's HCAI Public Behavioral Health Training program, which has provided me with $50,000 to put towards my schooling. Taking a leave of absence would mean not only that I'm in violation of the conditions of that grant, but that I might have to pay it back.

Without a degree to show for it. It would also mean that I don't get to fulfill the commitment that I've made to California to serve vulnerable communities, vulnerable populations with my degree. Taking a leave of absence wouldn't mean that I that I'm going to make a job or make sufficient money.

My sister's only source of income is the money that she gets from being a child care provider to my daughter's serenity. So it's going to definitely have a ripple effect on her, too.

Without childcare and the additional support I received from CalWORKS, I couldn't work, I couldn't go to school, I couldn't pay my bills, I couldn't pursue my dreams. I would feel like after all the work that I've done, I'd wind up right back at square one.

When I was living in the shelter, I was four days out of a C section and I was expected to clean, or I would risk housing, I would risk getting kicked out. I didn't get the bit, the privilege or the benefit of someone bringing me a casserole or helping me wash the dishes.

When you're in moments like that.

It's hard to imagine that things can get any better. It's hard to envision a future that's bright. I felt like at the time that nobody believed in me. The people that were supposed to love me and support me were telling me I'd made a big mistake. They were telling me that I wouldn't succeed

When I heard about childcare through calworks, it gave me the strength to take a step forward. I thought, if I get childcare, I can get a job that can actually pay my bills. And if I can get a job, I can get out of this place.

And if I can get out of this place, I can do right by my daughter and fix the situation before she even remembers that we were here in the first place. And I've done just that. I've been able to do that with the support of child care and calworks.

So today I'm here to call on all of you to step up and use your position to fight against this. I know that you didn't propose these cuts, but you have the power to work within the California budget to make sure that even if this freeze happens on a federal level, that our most vulnerable Californians are protected.

They're safe. And I'm not just talking about other single moms like me. I'm talking about our kids, some of whom might be in shelters right now, may be living in their car, hoping for a future that feels safe.

I'm talking about the seniors that I care for at the senior center who rely on me having childcare so I can give them the quality care that they deserve. Everyone is deserving of having a safe place to rest, a safe place to bring their kids while they go to work, go to school.

And right now, that's at risk. I'm calling on you to please prioritize calworks and childcare funding in the state budget. Families like mine were fighting every single day just to survive. We're using all of the resources that we have. Please fight with us, and please don't let us go back to square one.

Thank you for allowing me the time to speak.

Yes, thank you very much. That was powerful and such a beautiful description of how important the child care safety net is to families and parents. I know my colleagues are itching to ask lots of questions. So with no further ado, let's get right to it. That's what would. Who would like to start?

Oh, we have our witness back, actually. There we go. Thank you. Next we have Hanadi Rousan from VDA Incorporated Preschool. Thank you for Making it.

Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for having me here today. Good morning, Chair and Committee Members. I appreciate the opportunity of being here today to discuss the impact of this federal funding freeze on our child care stability with all of you today. Sorry, I had a almost a four hour drive and it was very stressful.

But I'm here today and I'm really glad to be here. So my name is Hanadi Roussan and I'm a program Director for VDA Inc. And the program stands for Vitality, Development and Achievement. I've been in various roles in child care for 32 years. Started out as a teacher assistant and moved all the way up to program Director.

And few years ago I completed my master's in leadership to support my team with quality care and all of that. We proudly serve families in the district represented by Assembly Members David Tangipa and Joaquin Arambula.

And we are here to talk about what the Fund would do to our programs and many of our programs in the Central Valley. So this is my first time being here. Am I going to be asked a question or do I propose the question?

You can do whatever you want with your time.

All right, so as a community based organization operating both sides CSPP and CCTR programs in California, we have already felt a lot of the chronic funding disruptions. Despite the state California strong efforts to save and to provide us with the funding that we have.

We are very thankful to California's leadership for protecting what the temporary reimbursement rate increases hold harmless provisions and expanded our eligibility and flexibility. But we know that pausing this funding or having the funding not being 100% as a resource for us, it pauses and it does a lot to our programs.

For example, hiring and limiting enrollment despite the overwhelming demand. Our wait lists are huge and we could never get to half of it. Deferred essential repairs to classrooms and outdoor learning spaces.

Our environments are always in need of care and to bring it up, cuts or scaled back wraparound services including mental health support, development screening and dual language services, which we see so much in our centers. I feel like I look at preschool or early childhood education as a platform to grow brains and hearts.

And I truly believe, as a mother of three grown children and a new grandmother, an educator for life and a preschool teacher forever, that our platforms are the beginning place for parents and for children.

We work a lot with kids to teach them how to look you in the eye and how to say I want this and I don't want that, how to ask for help and how to self Regulate and how to take a breather.

Our preschool programs work with our parents to teach them their rights, to help them navigate a really tough system that seems to be friendly, but it's really not when it comes to asking for services or asking for extra support.

So our programs fulfill a lot of these categories by working with parents and working and learning the need and meeting children and parents where they're at. So any funding that like we're already working with, we could use more funding and we're making it work. So I could see that any disruption would really affect our families.

Our families, especially those living in rural areas, working class immigrant communities are being left with very few reliable resources, if any, when it comes to child care options. And I do work with those families. And I have huge wait lists and we try so hard to always look for other programs for them.

And it's most of them do stay on that wait list because the need is just huge. The funding would also impact our families. In our communities, a reduction in funds will lead to classroom closures.

And we've seen what that looked like during COVID I was one of those people that was super shocked to see locks on our doors. I never expect, like never expected that. And I had a hard time just trying to make sense out of it.

Within no time, within three months, we opened our centers because our families, we're counting on it. We have and serve those families that work in Walmart and odd jobs at different hours of the day that actually do need the service. So they count on us. Children in rural areas are already underserved.

There's issues with transportation, there's issues with immigration. There's issues with just the language barrier alone too. So it's already such hard challenges. Funding disruption also impacts children directly. The kids that we do serve directly, breaking the trust, breaking the emotional bonds that teachers create with these kids.

Our kids stay in our programs for a total of minimum of eight to ten hours, maybe ten and a half hours a day. We assess those kids, we play with them, we get to learn that, learn about their likes and their dislikes, their food allergies, their fears, their hopes.

We try to remind them the world is good and you could do a whole lot. And that happens through a curriculum that, that involves play and involves being individuals that we talk to and understand and help them get a language and help them find their delays and find their speech impairments and deal with it right away.

I'm asked all the time by people, what do you do for a living? And I truly believe that we Grow brains and hearts every single day. And because of our programs, because of this, I look at it as a foundation. We are the foundation. We are the beginning.

If I can instill the love of learning in a child or two, in a teacher or two, I'm creating something amazing for all of our future. So any funding disruptions, impacts definitely the child, the parents and the staff Member, the program, resiliency, the community, the system, the way we fit in our communities.

Programs like ours would lose a lot of momentum. And we've kind of saw what that looked like during the COVID years. And it was very, very hard to navigate through these challenges. Plans to any, to any time. Expand, expand. Quality, inclusion. It costs, it doesn't.

These things are not easy to obtain and they're not easy to not have when you have a variety of needs in your classrooms.

Recruitment, retention, retaining staff that have been with us for 14 years and are asked to do so much as far as their credentials, and they're getting paid very little to the amount of work that they're doing, but they do it because they love what they do, they love how they feel after they create that relationship and they see those seeds that they plant.

So early childhood education teachers are in it for the right reasons, and we need to value them and value the work that they do and appreciate it. And I truly believe that we're having a hard time already with all the challenges, finding employees, finding good teachers, trying to recruit and retain. It's not that simple.

And it's just been harder every single year for all of us. There will be fewer licensed providers. We're going to end up with a whole lot of longer wait list and a lot lower quality when it comes to our workforce.

And we need to look at that because quality really matters, especially when we're dealing with young children and parents. I'm a big believer as an educator, as a mother and a grandmother, that you cannot serve a child without serving the whole family. If a child is broken and the mom is broken, I can't.

There's not a whole lot to be done. Our programs, we extend them to our families, to the mothers and daughters and grandparents and neighbors. Anyone that is. That has something to do with that child's upbringing. We are part of that community for these people.

So funding is so important, and we're asked to do so much more with very little funding. We're still trying to make it work because we really love what we do. We truly believe that our work makes a huge difference.

I want to talk a little bit about the examples of how past funding disruptions like stage three veto, and we can all know how that impacted families. We've seen what happened during that time. Stage three veto in 2010 devastated our region, honestly, and I was around to watch that.

Thousands of children were dropped from care within weeks of decisions. Providers were confused, families lost jobs, trust was broken. We work with community members, people that count on us to go and work eight hours and still feel that their children are safe, their children ate, their children played. So it does disrupt a community altogether.

We're part of that community. Even now, more than a decade later, some counties in our central valley have not regained the provider capacity they lost. And we're talking 10 years ago. With few new providers entering the field due to burnout, low wages, and all this complexity, we are honestly dangerously, very close to repeating that time.

As someone that's been in the field for 33 years in various different roles, I'm a little worried. And I want to ask all of you to support us in the field. Know that our work is worth a lot.

And I truly feel that when we do our part at that early stage, we prep our students and our families for kindergarten, for first grade. We already have gone through the screening. We've looked at the red flags, we've supported, we've sent the referrals, we've brought the speech therapists, we brought the psychologists.

By the time that child we did our DRDPs, we know the milestones by the time the child is coming to kindergarten. There's confidence, there's a voice. There's a parent that knows their rights. There's a parent that's not afraid to ask for services, for extra help, for modifications for something that they physically need.

We prep our families to have a voice to ask for what they need. We also cover things like nutrition, physical education. We talk about the heart, we talk about the feelings, like our programs are encumbering of what life is.

I've always told my staff our classrooms are part of our world, how whatever we do, we have to make that connection from here on out.

Again, from someone that's been in this field as a teacher, assistant, associate teacher, teacher, site supervisor, program Director, as a person that loves families and children and truly believe and have seen the difference. I've taught parenting classes for 10 years in my life.

I've seen that the work we do from the minute the child and the parent walks into our office to enroll makes a huge difference. We create a strong bond for life. I have so many families that leave and call us and say, can you, can we come back? Can you create a first grade?

I have my daughter here with me today. She's 25 years old. My daughter Rahaf was a preschooler in our own program. She's a beautiful young lady and I'm very, very proud to have her here with me today. She's always a reminder that the work we do matters, the seeds we plant matters. And I do see a difference.

I meet children that I've served in preschool and I'm a grandma now, and I've seen they come up to me and say, thank you for playing with us, thank you for thinking about us, thank you for talking about this. And their parents never forget us, never ever forget us.

We get calls about what do you think about this school or what do you think about this curriculum? Because we have built that trust and that trust is for life. Thank you for listening to me and thank you for being here and for all the work you all do.

Thank you very much for driving the long way and making it a time. We appreciate your testimony very much. You know, I think it's important to level set where we are with the system right now.

You know, the cuts that were proposed, the freeze that was proposed by the Trump Administration, fortunately has been frozen itself by the court action. And, you know, it's up to all of us to work together to make the case that we need that funding to continue.

I think each one of the witnesses in their own way, described the stakes really well. And we got to do everything we can to reverse that decision because the consequences are so severe on California. Who'd like to begin? Assemblymember Bonta, thank you.

I just want to appreciate all of the panelists because what you were able to do was articulate very clearly the case for why it's so incredibly important for us to provide a stable, early child care network and system for our children, for our business people, our small business owners, for our local economies and for the state of California.

You articulated what it means to be able to have evidence based, research based efforts in your child care centers. You were able to articulate that it takes 15 hours a day to be able to deliver the services and supports to our children.

And you represented the most important thing that every single child care provider that I've ever met displays. I actually will add to the, to the parade of people who worked in childcare. I worked in childcare while I was, as a child care worker, while I was in law school.

And it was one of the ways that I was able to actually afford going to law school. What you all do and what you've shared is the very act of integrity.

And the fact that we are having to have this discussion about how we should be stabilizing the most integral and the most integrity filled activity in this state is beyond deplorable. I'm about to step out of this hearing.

Thank you, Chair, for bringing forward this very important issue because I'm going to go speak to the $170 billion that the Trump Administration is spending on Ayes detention centers and private prisons in the state of California.

And we're here because of a federal freeze imposed that completely destabilized our child care workers and our child care system under the guise of waste, fraud and abuse. The waste is putting at jeopardy your ability to have serenity and sage, be raised together, educationally provided for and put at risk your professional future.

The fraud committed on California is saying that childcare workers who wake up every single day and work 15 hours a day are doing anything but operating in a deficit often to be able to provide basic care for our children. And the absolute abuse is the abuse to Californians. In this moment.

Today, it doesn't matter what part of the state you're in, what district you are in, whether you are in Assembly Member Tangipa's district or Assemblymember Arambula's district, there are children whose lives and people whose lives depend on stable childcare.

I want to thank you all for believing the absolute atrocity of this notion of waste, fraud and abuse in this system. I will ask my question, which is a very simple question, if we want to accept that premise that caused the freeze and I'll pose it to dss.

Actually, can you share with us, or actually the child care providers, what levels of compliance and oversight and the paperwork that was referenced people have to undergo in order to be able to make sure that they receive funding for their programs?

Yes, thank you so much for both your comments and your question. The child care system is, is complex and there are quite a lot of hoops that people feel that they need to jump through to be a part of the system.

We do the best that we can to make it as least bureaucratic as possible, but it is complex. We have a wide variety of ways that we have oversight of our programs and that we prevent waste, fraud or abuse. I'll give a few examples of those, but it's really only the tip of the iceberg.

One is that all of our CCDF funded contractors must have fraud policies, fraud procedures and overpayment procedures to collect any misused funds. We review those policies of every contractor to make sure they comply with our complicated program requirements.

The Federal Government also conducts a mandatory triennial process to examine our case records to measure eligibility, errors or any improper payments. We report those findings to the Federal Government in accordance with issued guidelines. We are under the national average with respect to those error rates. We have risk assessment and monitoring of all contractors.

We annually identify the risk criteria for monitoring. It is applied to every contractor annually and the highest risk contractors undergo a comprehensive contract monitoring review using a program integrity monitoring tool.

Our Office of Audit Services reviews annual financial and compliance audits from contractors and in addition they perform audits on childcare contractors and may identify fraud or non compliance during those audits. And finally, we receive whistleblower complaints or other notice from individuals and investigate them aggressively.

If we do confirm that there is any fraud or that there have been bad actors between the Department, the counties and our contractors, we take significant actions as appropriate to the circumstances. And that can include providing technical assistance to the county or contractor to strengthen their internal controls and policies.

It can include formally placing a contractor on conditional status or even terminating their contract. We can recoup misused funds as necessary. Families could be disenrolled from participation and prevented from enrolling in the future. We can take administrative action against licensed facilities ranging from the assignment of civil penalties to the full revocation of their license.

And we can take legal action such as a lawsuit or a referral to law enforcement when necessary.

Can I respond? Also just. I'm going to take off my LA County supervisor hat and put on my old old hat of having run one of the largest AP R&R agencies in the state because we are that we are the payer. Money comes down the agencies then actually make the payments to the providers.

And on top of all of that I then had an internal fraud detection unit. And the challenge even with the term fraud, in many instances they were errors. And so really trying to change the concept of the difference of fraud.

You know, willful intentional defrauding of public system versus an error, a childcare provider mistakenly submitting a form or a parent mistakenly. I mean some of the errors could be like signing on the wrong line. Let's be really clear about what an error could be and what's than characterized as fraud.

But, but I had a fraud detection unit internally. I actually set aside an office. We had so many audits from the the state or then the county. I had a designated office in one of my buildings at Crystal Stairs for the auditor. So they could just have a space because I was being audited so often.

And I think putting my county supervisor hat back on now. I think one of the challenges that, that we are experiencing is that we are required to absorb the increased administrative burdens to meet many of the new federal verification requirements without any additional resources. And so as these new bureaucratic expectations, local government isn't compensated for that.

And so our eligibility workers are doing more, expected to do more, with no compensation coming to the counties to do that work.

Thank you, Assembly Member Bonta, for the great questions. Assembly Member Patel is next and then Assembly Member Jackson.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for organizing this very important hearing at this very critical juncture. I think we're all left wondering what our Federal Government is thinking in undermining our workforce and our working families. We, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

And I think of all the witnesses here in the room today, that child care workforce is essential for our workforce. They are enmeshed and interconnected and we can't do one without the other.

There were years in my life where my mother provided essential childcare for working families that worked odd hours because we also needed the income and she saw the need in the community. And so we were able to do that, to provide that odd hours child care service for families in our community.

And she did it with love and care and dedication and devotion the way any mother would with any child. So when I look at childcare providers, I know the passion and the care with which you are looking after our children.

And in fact, it was the increasing cost of child care for my own children that made it very difficult for me to balance working and raising my children. And so I also understand the pressures that are on working families to make sure their children are well cared for so that women and families can stay in the workforce.

When I look at these cuts that were being proposed, and thank goodness the judge ordered the freeze for now, what I realized is that these actions don't actually help avoid waste, fraud and abuse. As my colleague here said, they actually create instability, they create whiplash and they destabilize our systems.

It's not just baffling or frustrating, it's literally unconscionable because it puts people on the razor thin edge of wondering every single day whether they're going to make it to work, whether they're going to have a workplace to go to and whether their child is going to be cared for.

I do have some specific questions and maybe we can get some answers. One is that if these funding cuts do materialize if we're not able to stop them with the actions that you suggested that we do. Very reasonable actions of reaching out to our congressional reps fighting for them on our side.

You gave us some good suggestions, but it might not be enough. In this moment, we're realizing that our state budget is really imperiled as well. Do we have an estimate of how many children will be without child care?

We heard the numbers for Los Angeles, but across do we have an estimate of how many children will be without childcare? And then translating that to how many families might not be able to go to work and earn income and then to that how many facilities might close down is asking. It's a lot. No, no, that's okay.

That's okay. Just give me one moment. I can speak before she finds. We serve over 400 students in three different counties and our programs are set for parents that are working parents, full day programs. So imagine the impact on that many families and students. We're not talking who's also on the wait list.

And I'll take that to the statewide level, it's 367,000 children that we serve monthly with subsidies. But that's just the subsidies. To the extent that we destabilize the entire child care field, it is the rest of private pay families as well who could experience those disruptions. But for the subsidies from the state, 367,000 statewide.

367,000. When we think about the ripple effect of that for children not having early childhood care that will set them up for their bright futures that they're entitled to, that's unconscionable. When we think about the new work requirements that are required to get on medi cal and families not being able to work, unconscionable.

And to look at the increased amount of bureaucracy that we're creating through these policies, we're not actually reducing the bureaucracy, we're not reducing the waste. We're actually creating new waste in this process. Can you also share with me, you talked about the robust licensing process and the audit process.

Once these cases are heard and cleared, how many actually, percentage wise, maybe turn out to be legitimate fraud? 1 to 2% of the total spending in the state. Very, very low amount considering the size of the industry. And it sounds like you're very much on top of it to begin with.

And it sounds like the system does get audited quite often.

We're always an audit. Right? Our auditor are in audits. We're always in audit. It's true. Always. It's always we always. I completely understand when you said, I designated a space. Right. We're not as big as you. Right. But we really did have a thought of, like, okay, when they do come, how can we make the space workable?

Space? I mean, we're. We're always in audit. So for me, for somebody to hear that, it's like, how. How could that even be possible? Because we live this life, and it's like, we're always an audit. That's part of what we do.

Yep. So with that low. One second. With that low percentage amount, how. How much does that translate to? Dollars compared to dollars we invest in our children. Do we. Do we have that?

If I let someone join me real quick, it's less than 1%.

We found out it's about seven. We have a couple instances. We address them, we go.

We'll need you on the mic. I'm sorry. Yeah, come on up.

The question is, what does 1% translate to, in terms of dollars?

$7 million.

Compared to the whole bucket of money, which is, which is billions.

Out of 7 billion. Yeah, there you go.

Less than 1%. Please do add what you were going to.

No, I just wanted to add in because people look at the child care provider, not you here, of course, but we even have to go through audits. I'm partnered with Early Head Start, which is federally funded, and then I also receive payment programs from CCRC as well as the county, and they audit us as well.

And the food program is audit as well. So, we're constantly going through audits. And then, when you file your taxes, you're getting audited again. So, I just wanted to add that. Thank you.

So, it sounds like there's already a very robust process in place in the state of California and that our providers are doing a substantially excellent job meeting the requirements of the audits and the licensure and the processes that are already in place and remarkably, working 15 hours a day, they are clearing those hurdles very responsibly.

So, I want to echo again the sentiments of my colleagues here. Deeply appreciate your heartfelt testimony. It helps put real faces on some of the issues we're facing. And my goodness, we're going to fight for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well said, Assemblymember Patel. Next, Assemblymember Jackson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Unlike you, Mr. Chair, I did not have the fortune of working in childcare, but I've acted like a child my entire life. Mr. Mr. Chair—first, Ms. Bustamante, you do our profession well. You have represented our profession well.

You are one of the few who get to engage in our practice, both at the macro mezzo and the macro level, as you're doing today. So, well done.

Thank you.

One of the things that I—that we're taught—in our profession is that when you have limited resources and you have to figure out what is your best bang for your buck, we are informed by the research that if you have limited resources, the best thing you can do is invest in families with children.

There is no better investment a society can make because not only are you helping the adults at that time, you are affecting communities across generations.

But conversely, there is nothing more evil than someone can do, a government can do, a leader can do, than to target the well being of children. As a matter of fact, if you want to devastate a society, if you want to devastate a community, past your own existence, all you have to do is destroy the well being and the future of their children.

And that's what we're seeing here. That this Administration is so enthralled with the demise of California or anyone else that questions him, that he's not trying to just teach people a lesson today, but for an entire generation, there's nothing more evil than someone can do than to target the wellbeing of children.

And it's interesting to me that when you put all these things together, the able body work requirements that they're trying to put into place, not trying to, are putting into place. And they say you need to work, but then they try to take away childcare to prevent people from working.

It reminds me of the quote of Martin Luther King that talks about expecting people to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, but you're taking away their boots. And so, all these things we're doing is nothing but a contradiction.

And what is really going on is you're trying to destroy an entire generation of people in states that disagree with him. And not only that, he's doing it so that he can continue to make sure that billionaires continue to make billions off of the back of children.

It's amazing to me that all of this is in the guise of fraud when the best examples of fraud is in the Trump's own business practices over time. That has been decided by courts and juries who he owes money to banks. We know what fraud is because we've seen them do it.

And so, now, we're trying to think that these people who are trying to take care of children, who are trying to complete and participate in their life's work, they're dedicating their life to the development of children. I know, it's bad. See we even making babies cry. I know. Did I get too dark? My bad.

So, I think the question to all of you is, given what we are seeing in the childcare space and all the other things that we're seeing in conjunction to that, what do the future hold for the families that you're serving?

The future hold to those who are participating in these programs, to those of you who are running these programs. If these programs go away, if this funding goes away, what else can our families do to be able to have an opportunity to thrive?

I think for me, my runway is about a month before I would have to shut my facility if the they took funding away. So, once that month is over, parents will have to find another provider who could take their children, but there will be another—there will not be another provider because all providers doors will basically close.

But it will be hard because of severe effects and the funding freeze could have on child care providers across California. When parents have nowhere to send their kids for quality care and education, their jobs are at risk because they end up in a position to take on child care themselves.

So, they have no money and then they could possibly become homeless. Me, myself, I've had to pretty much come up with the action plan for my own kids because like I said, I am a grandmother now.

So, I'm talking to my independent children who live away from home, who have jobs, who need daycare and I'm able to provide that for them because they really can't afford to pay it out of pocket.

If anything happens, they're going to have to move back in with us and we're going to have to stay together so that we can figure out a way to make ends meet, basically, because this is worse than Covid.

When Covid happened, I got myself in a lot of credit card, not, I don't want to say credit card debt, but I had to use my credit cards and I'm still clawing my way out paying them off.

And of course, they had the PPP loans and the SBA loans, but I mean, all that does is put us backward, in my opinion. We won't have any finances, so, parents will become very financially stable.

And what worries me the most is parents, they become so overwhelmed until they can't take care of their children and they may harm themselves or harm their kids. That's what I think about a lot.

I mean, I can't say what I've heard, but I've been talking to my parents about this and it's devastating for them, considering a lot of them don't have any family. I'm their family. I'm their family childcare provider, but then I'm their family.

I'm their children's...because I'm at that age, grandmother, their auntie, you know, their best friend in most cases. So, I can go on and on about this, but the effects would be very severe and it's a little scary at this point, just as I discussed this in front of you right now.

So, that's some of the devastation that could happen with families if they lose childcare and then lose their jobs as well.

Ms. Bustamante, you are pursuing your MSW. I still have flashbacks from that experience. You not only—we are told when we enroll that if you have a full-time job, you may need to find some other employment to be able to make it through this program.

We are told if you have a spouse, let them know they're not going to ever see you again until this program is done.

And we need you because there is not an agency, there is not a county, who is not looking for qualified social workers to do the heavy lifting that it takes to keep our population stable right now.

It's true.

So, we're begging you to finish. But what would happen if you lose your childcare?

Thank you. If we lost childcare, we'd be completely destabilized. We'd likely go back to living in a shelter. I would not be able to hold a job down because I wouldn't have anyone to watch my child. I live on a single parent income and my job is part time right now while I'm in school.

On top of that, my childcare provider, who is my sister, would also not have an income. So, one of us, we'd probably have to work together, would have to make a decision who gets to advance in their career and who gets to stay at home, which is unfair. My sister is a wonderful provider.

She is only 22 years old. I would love for her to pursue her education as well. And without child care funding, I don't think she'd have that opportunity.

I also wanted to add a different piece to this. I think about our kids, and we seem to see a lot of delays with speech, with behaviors, and our centers are the places to look for solutions. We are also the same place that discover neglect and discover—we are the ones to call CPS and we care so much.

Our lives are not just the hours that we're working in the center. Our centers become a community to our families for a lot of different fields. For nutrition, for resources, for advice, to, to—it's very scary for families that also worry about immigration.

And right now, there's so much happening locally that we have a lot of families afraid to come to school, afraid to send their children to school. They want to see their children back and they're afraid that that might not happen. Our centers are the heart of the communities. That's how I look at our centers.

Once our programs are over, our classrooms are over, we have parent meetings, we have parenting classes, we have cooking classes, we're a community center that is called childcare, but we're way above and beyond that. I tell you that because I've been doing this for a very long time.

And I have parents that physically started that process with me and they're now grandparents. We still have that connection. They still call and say this is going to come up, what do you think? Because they've built the trust and the trust is very hard to build in other places. They know we're going to come through.

So, when you look at a child's health and you think their mental health and their wellbeing and being able to have a voice, we do that. We're the ones to do that and we do it for their families too. We have an intake form that we care to know what services you, as a parent, need.

And I tell you what, the first month of school, nobody wants services, everybody wants services.

But the minute they begin creating that relationship, the minute they begin trusting you, the minute they know you're going to come through with whatever you can do on your end, month 2, 3, and the sixth month, we can't keep up with the amount of asks because now, I know I can trust you.

I know I can come to you. I know you're gonna respect where I'm coming from and you're not gonna make me feel any other way. I know you're just gonna be a person that will lift me up and that's how I look at our centers.

So, to me, preschool and early childhood education is just a community and the heart for everything else to come. And if we do a fine job here and we make this building strong and we create this root strong in all these different aspects, we're going to have amazing people doing these jobs.

People that have hearts and they care. It starts with us. It really physically starts with us, and I truly wish that everyone sees this. To me, it's very common sense, but to a lot of people in places where they can make decisions, it doesn't seem that common and it's plain sad.

Madam Supervisor, you have seen—while you were at Crystal Stairs, I was working for Los Angeles Universal Pre-School back in them days.

LAUP, yeah.

And then, when you went to the Legislature, I follow the stand on the shoulders of those of you who have been chairs of Health and Human Service Budget Subcommittees. Yourself, Dr. Arambula, I believe Dr. Shirley Weber at one point was also. And now, on the county supervisor level. You've seen it all.

In my very few years on the planet.

What are your thoughts in terms of the type of ripple effects we could see?

I appreciate the question and let me say, I thank you for committing the hearing. And most importantly, I deeply appreciate the respect with which you all have shown providers and parents today. I have been in your chair when that was not the case.

And so, I thank you very much for the kindness and respect you have shown them. It is clear to me that you all understand the value of childcare. No more needs to be said about that. So, let me break it down a little different, if I may, sir.

First of all, while the point of today's hearing is childcare, the overall freeze is going to impact families who receive subsidized child care in an accumulative fashion. It is going to be the snowball effect.

So, CalWorks, many of the support programs that if you qualify for subsidized child care, you more likely than not qualify for these other programs. So, the child care is going to be the one rug we are going to rip off out from under people. It is going to be their housing.

CalWorks, it is a complete and utter devastation. And I agree with you all in terms of the why and the offensive nature of it all.

So, let me approach it from a different perspective because regardless of where you may fall in terms of whether you support federal actions or not, the buck is going to stop with you as the State Legislature. You either invest now or you, State Legislature, will pay later.

No one on this panel understands your budget and the pie that comprises your budget as I do as a former Senate Budget Committee Chair, and the impacts will have, the fallout, will impact every slice of that budget from education to housing to CalWORKs to your CDCR budget everywhere. So, you will pay for it.

So, the question I'm bringing forward today is while we may not be able to change with all of our advocacy the actions they take at the federal level, I am asking for a plan from this Administration and from this Legislature. We need a bridge plan because you will pay for it later.

And as you said, the investments on the front end are smart investments. The costs, the lifelong costs, because what happens to a dream deferred? State government pays for it, in the long term, multiplied. Third element I will add.

Prior to the 2010 stage three cuts, you really took me back at that point, in LA County, the childcare industry was the second largest driver of LA County's economy, above the entertainment industry. We know that every dollar a childcare provider pays in food and diapers and payroll, it bounces multiple times in that community.

That's true.

The child care industry never recovered and made the top three after that 2010 stage three cut. It's never recovered. And so, if you just want to talk about brass tax and what fuels the economy in your counties, childcare plays a significant role.

So, if you're not moved by the human stories, maybe you're moved by the mighty dollar. And the childcare industry is an economic engine that fuels your economies at the local level. If you're not moved by people who receive subsidies, okay, well, most childcare centers have a balance.

They do better than we do in our neighborhoods in terms of integrating integration. So, most child care settings have both private pay and subsidy. My son's entire childcare career, he was in settings with subsidized kids and private pay. The only difference is the color of the sign out sheet.

That's so true.

Right? And so, while we hear that it's 380 some thousand children on subsidy that will be impacted, the entire infrastructure, the entire foundation of the childcare industry, will be compromised.

Because if you're a private pay parent and you're struggling to make those payments now, imagine what it will cost you if that childcare provider doesn't have subsidized children to help their foundation. You will—your costs will go up exponentially. So, if we just want to break it down to brass tax and money, there's the explanation.

There is the human element, which is unquantifiable. But then, there's also the economic piece that U.S. State Legislature—legislators—will have to confront.

If we don't have a plan to provide cover to this industry for these families, the bottom will fall out and that will fall directly in your lap and my lap as the safety net level of government. That's why I'm here today to really talk about we need to have a plan.

The judge and the court has given us a little breathing room, but I am a betting woman and I'm not betting that that is going to be permanent. We have to be ready on behalf of them. Now, I bet you're not going to invite me to come back to any more of these budget hearings after that.

Thank you for the question.

Thank you very much. Before we have Ms. Sharp-Collins speak, could the gentleman from DSS come up? Just give your name for the record on the microphone over there. Thank you.

Right there.

You can just give your name and your affiliation and the answer to the question.

We'll have a gap in the video. Definitely. Definitely. My name is Joey. I'm the Fiscal Forecasting Bureau Chief for the Department of Social Services. So I'm the numbers guy behind a lot of these things. To my earlier comment, DSS has identified about $7 million in identified fraud over the last two years.

Just for context, as mentioned earlier, we invest about 6.5 billion with a B every year for our child care subsidy programs here at dss. So percentage wise, less than a percent.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

Yeah, we've identified about 7 million with an M. And then we invest about 6.5 billion annually for our child care programs at DSS. So when we're talking about comparing fraud, identified fraud, 7 million versus 6.5 billion. So that's where we get our percentages. 1%.

Yeah. Next we have Assemblymember Sharp Collins.

My question was actually answered. However, I just wanted to give a comment, if that's okay. And thank you all for being here and making sure that we. We are clear in understanding in regards to just how important child care services is throughout this entire state.

Dr. Jackson brought up our Secretary of State Weber, having been a part of a Committee before serving, and I was the staffer at that time.

And I remember from one of those hearings when someone who was formerly incarcerated said the one thing that he wished he would have had that probably would have helped change the trajectory of his life was childcare. And that stuck with me all of my life so far.

And it just reminds me of the fact that it takes a village to raise a child. And we know that. And that village is important to make sure that all of our families are actually thriving. When I think about childcare itself and also the providers, it is about improving earning potential.

But what we continue to not realize is that it promotes equity. And it promotes equity by giving kids a fair start, you know, and really looking at those that are coming from disadvantaged communities. Too often people walk around and say, oh, I don't need an early childhood education. I can just go to first grade and keep going.

No, you really do, you know, you really do. And I'm saying this because I struggled as well when I had my two children trying to find childcare. My grandmother had to step in and be my childcare provider.

And then later on, I was able to finally find someplace that I can actually afford because I didn't qualify for anything for my son. And I was very difficult to find to find a place that was close by that still allowed me to work.

And my grandmother was older at the time too, to where she couldn't do what she used to do. And she took care of everybody's kids in the neighborhood. So it was not just my children, you know, her grandchildren, great grandchildren and so forth.

But as a result of my experience, I chose to serve on the Early Education Board. So I did serve on EES, the Educational Enrichment Systems Board for about almost, I think about six years. And that I know for a fact that the funding there was critical. That was a lifeline for families. It was critical for the employees.

And when you talk about these processes of supposed fraud and all this other stuff being on that board, we were audited all the time, okay? There was a rigorous process for compliance and that we had to undergo always audited notifications to the state, notifications to the families, all kind of, just all the time. All the time.

So I was, I was hurt by the accusations. Having served on the board and being through a process for those, for those six years, the one thing that I can say that I tried to push, as you know, the honorable Mitchell, the honorable Supervisor Holl Mitchell, was stating what can we do and have a plan.

I tried to have a plan for us. This past cycle I introduced Assembly Bill 1324, which would have had greatly expanded and modernized CalWORKS. That Bill had four parts that Bill would have accomplished addressing one, how the 100 hour rule of the work requirement.

It would have kept those who go on strike to allow them to still be able to be eligible to work. It was also looked at subsidized job that led to career growth, but also included those who were self employed into that process.

And I just wanted to say that knowing that that was brought forth last year, this hearing shows me even more so how beneficial that Bill would have been for the sake of so many Californians if we were able to get that across. The fight's not over.

I'm bringing back one of them to at least give it 100 hour rule. But the fight's not over. But you guys being here, and as I always say, speaking truth to power is extremely important. My last thing is that I just want to remind people and people who are in this field, you guys know it best.

Every child you encounter is a divine appointment. It is purposeful and it's unmistakably arranged. You were in this field for, for so many reasons and that's to touch the lives and to improve lives of so many.

So that way, as we were talking about in another caucus thing, we have to stop making sure people are just surviving, making sure that they're thriving.

And I wanted to say that because it is divine appointment and the services you guys have done is being able to allow people to live a quality of life as the way our supreme being has asked us to do. So thank you for all of your services and I look forward to our continued work together.

Thank you.

Thank you. Assemblymember Sharpe Collins. Next we have Majority Leader Aguiar Curry.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Good morning. Whatever. I can't sit here without having the, the throat that makes me want to just cry. Because we've gone up and down the state of California, we did workshops to try to figure out solutions. And as you said, supervisor is to find a bridge plan and we need one.

So first of all, this is one of lots of conversations we have. We have 59 women in the Legislative Women's Caucus that are behind this. They're working hard in child care.

But I want to just stress is that it's really come to the surface that how many men throughout our caucus and the Legislature are really concerned about childcare as well. And I sit back and people have heard me tell the story. But to me, childcare is low hanging fruit that we could take care of right now.

And why we continue to put up barriers to do that is beyond me. It changes the lives of people. Get people out of a circle that they can't get out of, helps education. We all know that a roof over people's heads. So we could be in a crisis. But I don't plan on being there.

I plan on continuing to help to bridge the planet. And I accept anyone's help that wants to go that route. The couple things I have is that when I sit and hear you speak and thank you very much and thank you very much for clarifying the fraud rate because I'm not putting up with that crap.

That is baloney. And continuing to go down that rat hole and hit the blue states in the nation, I'm tired of it. First of all, this Administration is freezing this, freezing the billions of dollars in childcare and social service funding. And it's cold hearted as we know, and it's illegal. It's absolutely illegal.

There are no legal basis behind blocking these funds, including the 2.3 billion that helps nearly half a million people. What I want to find out is how can we help families navigate the system? Because it seems to me we have lots of programs going on. Is there the magic potion to help these families navigate the system?

And as it is now, and we may need to have a backup plan to continue different way to navigate the system.

Thank you so much for that question. The Department of Social Services operates a very wide variety of safety net programs and within each of those programs there are different forms of case management or navigation that can help families braid together the resources that are available to them within the child care space.

In particular, the resources referral and alternative payment programs are often a space, a community based organization that provides that service of not only connecting the family to child care and determining their eligibility for child care, but also helping them to connect to the county for the other programs that the county provides or CBOs in the community that provide other services as well.

So that is a significant hub within the child care ecosystem. But as I mentioned, there are also hubs in our other systems as well.

I represent a rural area and so a lot of the conversation here is appropriate. But I do worry about my areas that don't have childcare per se or how to use the system and the impacts that we're having in those.

So what types of providers and areas of the state are most vulnerable to the cuts that we might be looking at in and how can we help all of California?

Thank you so much for that question. There are different challenges that I believe face the different providers and communities across the state. We have identified at CDSS and in the research there's significant identification of what you're referring to is often called a child care desert.

So it's an area where we know that notwithstanding any of this disruption just at the basic level, foundationally there is already a mismatch in the level of need and the number of providers who are are available.

We do have with our quality resources, both that come from the Federal Government and our state, investments, capacity building grants and opportunities to try to help to bridge that and to prevent the deserts from existing. There's also gaps depending on the nature of the care.

So for example, we have often seen in some areas that infant care is particularly difficult to obtain. So we do do work to sort of map the that set of needs across the state and try to build capacity as much as possible. But we know that there is more work to do.

Yeah. As we do a plan or bridge a plan, I would hope that we would make sure we incorporate those kinds of ideas that we need to move forward. You know, when I think about all of you that. Thank you very much. Thank you for testifying today.

I work with a Yolo County crisis nursery and my heart is full because they have really tried to figure out how to work with babies and children. The most important part about that is teaching mommies and daddies to be a mommy and a daddy.

Because when you don't know how to do that and you haven't been educated or have someone else to help mentor you and lift you up, it makes your life even that more, much more difficult.

So I appreciate the wraparound services that you're doing that you're talking about dealing with the family as well, because it's not the child's fault. You gotta figure this out. We don't need to continue this circle that we're doing with homelessness. We could have nipped us in the butt years ago, but we didn't pay attention.

One of my best teachers was a mom during COVID came and was mostly volunteering. Like, you're so good at this. You should look into learning how to be a teacher. And she has her permit now, and she's our top teacher and she's our mom. So also our centers are mothers look at.

And also a few dads look at what we do. They volunteer. And they just like, I can do that too. So I've worked for head start for 10 years, and I've seen so many moms that were volunteering the classroom. And by the time the year is over, they said, I want to do what that teacher does.

There's already a rope for them. There are all these teachers excited about a new teacher in the field. And what better teacher than a mom in our program that understood our program? And we help them through and navigate through the system. It's not an easy system, honestly.

We're expected to do a lot, but they become the best teachers. And that kind of. It's like full circle to us.

The last thing is the true cost of childcare. You know, it's easy for us to think about what's it really cost you all to do childcare and take care of our loved ones.

The fact of the matter is that when we don't really think about it, we think of dropping off a child and they're going to be in a safe spot for the day.

But no one knows what goes on behind the scenes, whether it's having to run to the grocery store, making sure we have enough food and things for the children, where you're driving back and forth from a school to pick up school kids for TK or whatever and take them back to the childcare.

Guess what that's cost somebody gasoline, cost of a vehicle, custom insurance, all those little Things no one thinks about. There's a true cost to what we're doing, what you're all doing. And so I just want to acknowledge the fact that this is not free.

This is because we care about our society and where we're going to be going and what we plan on doing. We need to look forward. We can't look back to some of the mistakes we've made in the past. We have to look forward and we got to do it now. We are in a crisis.

Also deserve quality. Not just they deserve quality, we deserve and quality costs and quality meaning. And a teacher that is very comfortable and very in tuned with her job description and why she's there and what she's doing.

And in order to get a teacher to that place, you have to invest in that teacher. And the investing is not cheap. Materials in the classroom not cheap. Nothing is cheap anymore. And quality is what we should all seek for our kids because when we provide it at that level, it's gonna go a long, long ways.

So thank you for mentioning that because they might be behind the scenes small things, but without these things we cannot operate.

We had one of the workshops that we've had. So many families sat right there and told us their story and I understand it. I've been a single mom. I get what that cost is. But there's so many people that don't and, and people's jaws were dropping. I never thought of that. I didn't think of that one.

You're right. So it's not just the childcare. It's someone's house that they might be providing the services in. They have insurance, maybe more insurance. The facility that these children need to have a nicer facility or different rules and regulations that we put on. So there's so much there.

So I still think that this is low hanging fruit we can fix and we have to be committed to do it. And I feel the Legislature is more and more committed to try to figure this out. So thank you very much. Thank you for your work, all of you. Appreciate it.

If I could just briefly clarify. Just want to make sure when I say bridge and a plan, it's not a new program. It's just making the money. It is plugging in the dollars in the right place where the Federal Government is not plugging them in.

I agree.

Programs are there. It is just about the Benjamins.

Yeah, thank you for the clarification. Yes.

Not a plan for anything new. We've got it. Just plug in the money. Secondly, I will say people are afraid and they should be.

And so we are experiencing in LA County, I'm sure other counties across the state where our Medi-Cal enrollments were low, people are afraid to show up to ask for help that they are entitled to today.

And so working with agencies, working with community based organizations, working directly with providers to making sure that they can then communicate to their families, this is how you do it. This is how you get help. People are afraid.

So we have to acknowledge that we shouldn't assume that enrollments are down because people don't qualify for Medi-Cal anymore. No, they're afraid because of what they see and because the Federal Government is. We're under attack from our own Federal Government. So we have to think differently.

The challenge with that, for the APNR and our agencies and for the childcare providers, we don't pay them to be advocates, to be connectors. That's what we have to do to get people into the programs. So I don't want you to look at enrollment numbers and assume, oh, we're doing good, people don't need these services.

That's not true. They have gone underground out of fear. So we have to work harder to overcompensate for that, to get them in the programs that they are still entitled to.

Thank you.

Thank you, Majority Leader Aguiar Curry. Next, Assemblymember Ortega.

Good morning. Thank you all for being here and thankful to our chair for holding this important hearing today. I also want to thank you for sharing your story. It's very important. While the Administration in D.C. does not care, we do.

Which is why we've been leaning on this issue and ensuring that our childcare providers and our babies have a place to go and our childcare providers are recognized for the work that they do. I was a single mother once too.

I remember at 18 years old having my first baby and the stares I got from people in the comments. And it was because of a child care center that I stand here today or sit here today as an Assembly Member. But I want to be very clear about something. I asked the gentleman to repeat the number.

Not because I couldn't hear him, but because I wanted everyone to hear him say that part. Less than 1% of fraud is happening in the state of California, fourth largest economy in the world. So this is not about fraud in California. Just like it wasn't about crime and going after criminals.

That part right now, the Federal Government, this Administration, is giving ICE $29.9 billion billion dollars to kill American citizens. While we're here sitting talking about what are we going to do to fill that gap while he's holding our money. Let's be clear, this is our money hostage.

So we're going to continue to do everything we can to stand up to those values, as a majority leader just stated earlier.

But I wanted you to know that in California, we are doing everything we can and will continue to do so in partnership with you all and our supervisor here, who I regret not having served with her and, you know, I value and of course will look for you for guidance to figure out how we close this gap.

Because we must prioritize our children. We must. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Ortega. This has been an extraordinary panel and hearing. The purpose of this Committee, Accountability Oversight, is to really put a spotlight on issues that have major fiscal and policy impacts for the state of California.

And in this instance, we have an opportunity to put a spotlight on what the Federal Government is doing to a very successful program that's critical to California's economy and to its families. And I think we've done a great job.

The panelists have been extraordinary, telling your personal stories, telling how critical to child care really is to California's economy and to the nation's economy and to families. And I'm just so indebted to the staff, Erin and Christian Griffith, for putting this together, the colleagues. Your incredible contribution today has been extraordinary.

And I think this has just been exactly what this Committee is for. And thank you for participating. The only thing we have left is to hear for the wonderful people in the audience who would like to add their comments. So if you have, if you're interested in talking to us, please come up to the microphone.

And if you could keep your comments brief. We've had a lot of information here today. Let's keep it to about a minute. Anybody can come up first and just start right away. Oh, it's perfect. We have the baby testifying first.

My name is Jacqueline Reyes and I have three children. And my baby is in the waiting list. And so I'm coming here to ask, please do not cut childcare services.

Thank you. What is the baby's name?

Enzo.

Enzo's beautiful. Who's next? We're leading with the kids today. How appropriate. Come on up.

Thank you for holding this meeting and for being here and being the people that are making a difference in our lives. This is my four year old. She goes to childcare. And I am also a childcare provider at Pacific Primary in San Francisco. And she's also. I'm helped out with subsidies as well.

And I just wanted to Say that childcare is so important for all these reasons that were said that were mentioned beforehand and also just to bring it home, that I could get a job that pays more and really work in a different field. And I feel like I'm really good at what I do.

I am creating that little voice inside the children's head that they will hear when they get older that tells them that they are good enough, that they can do those hard things and that they can be the people that, that they want to be.

We recently had our MLK Peace march and we are teaching our children to stand up and use their voice and to tell them that their voice is very powerful. And we need people who have a passion for what they do in the child care field and also access.

I'm at double sides, so please, if you could do whatever you can to help us to keep things going in forward momentum in this day. Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming. A minute isn't very long, so if you can be succinct, it'd be good.

My name is Lourdesa Larcon, I'm with Parent Voices San Francisco. I've been an advocate for many years, since I have a child. He's 20 years old now. He's going to the university, he's going to college and he's also working. So I receive the benefits of subsidized childcare.

And I think I'm also an educator and I think it's the backbone of the whole community, like of healthy people for a strong, healthy, smart people that we can form and so and raise. And I think we're a community and I think we should work together for the well being of our children. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Hi, good morning. My name is Elia Fernandez and I'm a parent of three and a grandmother of six. And I have a story because my daughter, she could never work and she never finished her school because she had her kids, she has four of them.

But right now she's in community college studying to be a doctor and she only has two more years to go. And with four kids it's kind of hard for her. She needs somebody to watch over them and with all these cuts that's happening is not good for her. So right now she stopped going to school.

Right now the kids are in school, but some of that they have, two of them are autistic and the 16 year old, he has severe autism and he needs more attention and support. But with her going to school, it's kind of hard so she had to stop right now. It's hard for her.

Thank you very much for sharing that. Yes, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Maria Lustore. I'm the organizer of Parent Voices in San Francisco. And this month is my 30th year doing this advocacy and organizing parents. So Parent Voice California surveyed 100 parents who use our safety net programs and asked them what would happen if they lose their childcare and Calworks.

62% of parents report they would lose their jobs, 27% report negative job impacts and 10% report negative impact to school and life. Gia, Parent Voice's parent leader and mother of two, is a calwork success story. She said freezing child care funding hurts working families and children, not fraudsters.

Families like mine rely on this support to survive, to work and pursue our education. Cutting funding punishes children and parents who are doing everything they can to get ahead in life.

If funding freeze goes through, we are counting on the Members of this Committee and all of California legislators to protect our most precious California gold, our children and families by ensuring the program they rely on are fully funded. Families like Mary, Linda and Gia are counting on you. So I'm going to pass around a two page.

Just thank you for your testimony for the survey that you did with your parents too. Thank you. Welcome.

Good morning. Amanda Kirchner, on behalf of County Welfare Directors Association, I want to thank this Committee for bringing this really important issue forward. I also want to just thank all of the panelists for their testimony, especially around their lived experience.

CWDA is especially concerned that this is just the beginning of unwinding of federal supports for our critical social services safety net programs. TANF CalWORKS is about 3.7 billion. And that is not just cash aid. That is housing support, that is education and employment support, and it's family crisis support.

We are also concerned about the social Services block grant, which is about $200 million in additional child welfare programs when those services are cut. What that means is for counties, we see a destabilizing effect across all of our systems.

And that means that we have to start making hard choices about protecting our seniors, protecting our families and protecting our children. So we're really just very encouraged by this Committee and the approach that you're taking. We hope that the Legislature will work to have a holistic approach to solving and protecting these families and these programs. Thank you.

Thank you. That's why we're here.

Hello. I am here on behalf of the Low Income Investment Fund LIF. We want to underscore the serious impacts that the proposed federal child care funding freeze will have on providers and families across California in the wake of the Los Angeles fires, LIF has worked closely with child care providers through LA Rise efforts to stabilize and rebuild facilities that serve low income families.

Delays and reductions in child care funding slow recovery and limit access for working families. We urge the Legislature to prioritize solutions that protect childcare investments. And we look forward to working with you to support child care, the child care field through new funding, investments and policy changes to reduce barriers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Naomi Gemmels, attorney at the Child Care Law Center. Cutting off or slowly or slowing child care funding even for one day will have disastrous impacts for parents, children, the economy and the labor force.

As was discussed today, we are calling on the Legislature fund the 77,000 new publicly funded child care spaces that are written in statute for the next 22 budget years. Also, to expedite and prioritize the transition to paying child care providers fairly and based on the true cost of care.

And three, to raise additional ongoing general fund revenue by closing unfair tax loopholes. Thank you.

Thank you, Sara Bachez. With children now, hope takes courage, morality and faith. Thank you so much for bringing hope. Today, our children and their families are increasingly living in fear. And I say that as a woman of color.

We're continuing to experience discrimination and harm which is further devastating the remaining semblance of a safety net system for our most vulnerable populations. We do not believe that this is a responsible way to govern on the part of the Federal Government. And we appreciate your leadership in California to stand up for our families and our children.

We need stability in the early learning and care field, and currently there is none. Our families are working so hard to thrive that they need continuity of care and reliability in all systems.

Our providers and educators deserve consistent guidance, professionalism and respect and assurances that the federal funding promised under contractual agreements and regulatory compliance will actually be delivered rather than withheld. Despite legally binding commitments, our families are resilient. Our providers are steadfast.

It's critical more than ever to ensure families can navigate these challenges during normal times, but especially now as we face literal wildfires and unexpected emergencies. We need a care system with all of our collective support to withstand these storms. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that.

Hi everyone. Dr. Lawanda Wesley, Child Care Resource Center. And I'm just going to shoot from the heart so we can go quickly. I am a former subsidy parent. I'm a former preschool teacher, also former Director of Child Care programs.

And what this means, the instability and destabilizing of this means that 170,000 children in California will be impacted by a potential cut of $5 billion. And what this means for some of our families is they can't go to work. It means they can't put food on the table.

And from those who provide the services, it means shuttering their doors and closing their programs. We know that this budget, the 5 billion, comprises of about 24%, 25% of the overall state budget towards childcare. Knowing that and having that potentially be impacted could mean destabilizing the entire childcare system as a whole.

So what we want to do is make sure for programs like Child Care for Child Care Resources Resource center is that we want to make sure that the 60,000 children that we serve now can continue to get those services.

But we also want to make sure the 25,000 children that remain on our waiting list at some point get served. We have not enrolled children since March of 2025. So we should go in another direction is to expand slots for our program, not go in this opposite direction under this guise that is before us now.

And that concludes my statement. Thank you for this space.

Thank you for your important work.

Good morning. Jeanette Carpenter. Thank you chair and Members here on behalf of Child Action. We serve over 20,000 children and their 10,000 families as well as 4,000 providers in Sacramento County. The 20,000 children are only about 11% of our total population and we aim to serve all Sacramento children, children and families.

Briefly, we align our comments with the ECU Coalition. The funding freeze is unacceptable and will cause a devastating impact to our children and families. In 2024 and 25 fiscal year we've paid over 154 million in subsidy assistance here in Sacramento County. And really just thank your.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to working with the Legislature and the Administration over the course of the year. Thank you.

Thank you for coming here today.

Thank you. Chair and Members, Mckenzie Richardson representing Thriving Families California Foundation. Our community based organizations connect families in all 58 of California's counties to critical services such as child care. And TFC really appreciates this body's leadership in strengthening continuity of care and supporting blended and breeded child care funding.

It's so important these policies matter for working families and provider. We heard from the panelists today and they matter for employers and California's economy. As was mentioned by many of the Members on this Committee. Despite serious federal threats, California continues to lead the nation in valuing providers and stabilizing care for families.

So we look forward to continuing to work with you all and your staff to build on this progress. Thank you.

We look forward to working with you too. Thank you.

Good morning. Danielle Bradley, on behalf of the California State Association of Counties, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, Members and staff of the Committee for holding this hearing today and including Supervisor Mitchell to share the local perspective.

While counties are not direct providers of child care, we do administer these CalWORKs, CalWORKs, child care and other safety net programs that are vital to supporting California's families. We're also acutely aware that childcare is a key driver of economic mobility and without it, there's compounding pressures on our overall safety net system.

Families are unable to go back to work and children miss out on vital early childhood development. Recognizing this, CSOC formed a Child Care Working Group last year comprised of various diverse supervisors from across the state, including Supervisors Supervisor Mitchell, to really take a deeper look at child care access and the interplay with county systems.

As Supervisor Mitchell highlighted, counties are not in the fiscal space to backfill all of the federal impacts and cuts coming our way. HR1 alone is projected to be billions of dollars in added or shifted costs to counties.

However, we do stand ready to partner with the Legislature and the Administration and stakeholders to ensure that we can keep this federal funding flowing. We know it's a delicate balance to braid and blend these funding sources and every everything counts.

So thank you very much for holding this space and we look forward to continuing to work with you.

Thank you. Thank you for being here to represent CSAC. Hi.

Good morning. Monique Ramos on behalf of First Five LA, we first wanted to thank the Administration, the Attorney General's office and the Legislature for swiftly taking action and communicating as much as possible with the field as to what was happening and what the next steps may look like. Specifically for la, this is incredibly LA families, this is incredibly impactful.

Already in LA there are RNRs and APs with waiting lists and it feels more like pre pandemic childcare out there than it does the good times when we had a lot of spaces and access.

Additionally, the fear that is occurring in LA with ongoing ICE raids, families are in hiding and not even taking advantage of the services they have access to, much less enrolling in additional services at this time.

Lastly, we just say we really want to thank the Legislature and look forward to working with all of you to develop a plan to ensure that all families continue to have access to care. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning Chairmembers Andrew Avila with Early Age California advocacy nonprofit for the investments and expansion of early learning and care opportunities. We want to thank you all for the timely, important hearing on the very serious and harmful impacts of a potential of federal withholding of funds.

At a time when childcare is being used as political leverage, we believe California must act swiftly to protect all the progress we've done in the several years in our state.

For a while now, we've known that what it takes to build a stable mixed delivery system includes the fair and true cost of care for providers, ensuring access for all children regardless of income, and then building resiliency in our programs that can withstand political and budgetary shifts beyond the state's control.

We know that with federal withholding of funds would cause widespread turmoil for the development of young children for working families and threaten the very existence of our essential child care programs.

So we really do urge the Legislature to act swiftly and boldly to protect the progress that we've made and our communities and the broader economy that really relies on our essential child care programs. Thank you.

Thank you for coming to speak up.

My chair, Yesenia Rabancho with End Child Poverty in California, just again sharing gratitude to the state and to supervisor Holly Mitchell for acting quickly and giving the county an ability to come up with a contingency plan with the effort to fight back against what we're calling illegal, targeted, politically targeted freezes that are playing with our family's lives.

And let's be clear, child care services are not throwaway services. They're not optional services. They're life and necessary services, not only for our children, our families, but also our workers.

I think we have a really clear and prime opportunity here in light of all the different cuts that we are seeing as a result of HR1 and now these illegal freezes to raise revenues. Let's be clear, if we do not find a solution for these problems, these fiscal problems, our families will bear the burden.

And that will lead to families not having an option to go to a childcare center. That will lead to workers not having a job to return to that would lead continue to lead to our recipients not having CAL Fresh Medi-Cal beneficiaries having health care.

And so we really hope that we can work with you and the Legislature to ensure that we have revenue sources that are available. Thank you.

Thank you for precisely describing our challenge.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members. My name is Conrad Crump with Disability Rights California, and I actually appreciate the comments from the previous speaker. The domino effect of all of the things that are, you know, essentially going to happen with these cuts.

As I come to you today, you know, I look at it from a perspective of children with disabilities. You know, when it comes to children with disabilities, childcare isn't just supervision. It's actually the first place where intervention, developmental supports, as well as inclusion can begin.

So those early supports are actually the foundation of success under the idea clause that we all would love to continue to see happen for our students. When policies like HR1 reduce access to these services, the affordable child care services don't shrink, they actually disappear.

As a previous spot speaker just mentioned, you know, families get pushed out of the workforce, early interventions are interrupted, and by the time children enter school, those gaps have widened.

So, you know, we definitely find it super imperative for the Legislature when we're talking about what's going to stay, what's going to get cut, that we keep students with disabilities at the center.

You know, as you evaluate, you know, these policies, any policy that destabilizes inclusive childcare will directly weaken that educational access and civil rights protection for these students. So ultimately, we just want to make sure that children with disabilities are treated as central to the conversation and not an afterthought. So thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for focusing on children with disabilities.

Good morning. Chair Hartman Ortega, Jonathan Munoz, on behalf of First Life California, first just want to say thank you for holding this hearing and for giving us space to voice our concerns.

Second, we'd like to thank the Administration, Governor Newsom, and Attorney General Rob Bonta for their swift action in protecting these dollars and ongoing efforts to protect them. First, California would like to align its comments with the EEC coalition.

And I don't want to belabor the points, the great points that have already been made, but just want to just reiterate how imperative it is that we secure these dollars and these resources to continue to provide family access to more affordable childcare. Thank you again.

Thank you.

Good morning. Chair Hart and Members Alicia Hatfield. Every Child California. I wanted to add an important point for context as allegations of fraud are being raised. Prior to working here in California, I had the honor of serving as an education policy advisor in Congress.

And one key difference between California and the federal legislative process is the evidentiary standard required to introduce a Bill. In California, legislative proposals are expected to be grounded in empirical data research before they'll even be considered for a Committee hearing. To be sure I was remembering this correctly, I even texted my former legislative Director in Congress.

At the federal level, there is no requirement that a Bill proposal be supported by data or empirical evidence. I raise this not to compare systems, but to underscore that California's policy framework is intentionally built around evidence and accountability.

That context matters as we evaluate the claims of fraud and the threat of funding destabilization coming from some in the Federal Government at this time.

Thank you very much. Thank you for everyone who testified. And thank you for the public comment. That's incredibly enlightening. You know, there's a saying that everything important in life is learned in kindergarten, but as we heard today, that is not true. It was learned before you got to kindergarten.

And we need to do everything we can to protect the incredible safety net that we have developed in California that provides critical child care services to our California kids and parents and our economy. So thank you very much for testifying. It's been a really important hearing today. Thank you.