The move is expected to save the state $12 million.
“I know providers like myself and other partnership agencies are very concerned that without the ability to layer these funds, we’re not going to be able to continue to offer the high-quality services we’ve been offering,” said Karen Lampe, president of the Creative World of Child Care in Dayton, an early childhood education provider.
Cynthia Dungey, the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, earlier this month issued a notice “clarifying” a provision of the Ohio Administrative Code.
Ohio has been an extended-day state since 1994, meaning it does not allow providers to bill the state’s publicly funded child care when they receive Head Start funds for the same hours, she said.
About 115,000 children are enrolled in Ohio’s public child care system. Head Start serves about 38,000 children statewide.
About 4,200 children (3 percent of the total) received funding from both programs.
Ohio’s program serves children whose families are working or enrolled in school and who earn less than 130 percent of the federal poverty level. Families must earn 100 percent of the poverty level or less to be eligible for Head Start.
The state will put the money it saves into increasing child care reimbursements for programs with star ratings, which is a measure of quality, state officials said.
But the state’s decision will negatively impact more than 15 private child care centers and 27 family child care providers in the region who serve children enrolled in Head Start, said Mary Burns, president and CEO of Miami Valley Child Development Centers Inc.
The agency is the only Early Head Start and Head Start grantee in the three-county area that includes Clark, Madison and Montgomery Counties.
There are about 1,162 children enrolled in Head Start partnership programs in Butler, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Warren counties, according to estimates by a statewide Head Start association
Providers can still bill Head Start and publicly funded child care for the same children, but not during the same hours that they receive services.
But Head Start pays for extra services that are integrated into care settings that improve quality, and it’s not as though those services are delivered during certain times of day, Burns said.
Head Start has much more stringent regulations than state-funded care, and Head Start payments enhance services and are not dual payments or overpayments, Burns said.
Head Start also funds small staff-to-child ratios and social services including transportation, assessments, mental health referrals, training and other family supports, Burns said.
Ohio’s reimbursement rate is inadequate to cover the cost of high-quality child care and pre-school, but local programs use Head Start as gap funding to provide better services, said Robyn Lightcap, executive director of Learn to Earn Dayton, a nonprofit focused on educational outcomes.
Montgomery County now has more programs with star ratings and more programs have increased their ratings, she said.
Still, only about 35 percent of community-based care providers in the county are star rated, Lightcap said.
The state’s action could hurt the ability of Ohio agencies to win Head Start and Early Head Start grants, advocacy groups said.
Head Start wants programs to layer its funding with state dollars, and failing to do that likely will hurt applicants’ scores, said Barbara Haxton, executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association.
About 10 programs have signaled they will apply for 905 slots from the Head Start partnership funds, whose deadline is next week, Haxton said.
Each slot in the current grant benefits from about $13,600 in federal support, so there could be $12.3 million in federal money at stake, she said.
“We probably won’t get that money that’s on the table because of the state’s new rule interpretation,” she said.
The state also risks losing millions of dollars in Head Start assistance if children are moved out of the federal program so they can remain in the state’s program, officials said.
Some state lawmakers, including state Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, and Rep. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, have vowed to fight to make the state reverse course. Fedor on Friday encouraged providers to apply for Head Start grants next week while they push the state to nix or delay its plan.
“The federal government has long been aware that Ohio is an extended-day state Our understanding is that this status in no way prohibits Head Start providers from applying for federal grant dollars,” Jon Keeling, Communication Director for ODJFS, said.
Burns has asked the state to establish a standard deduction for all Head Start children of about 2.5 hours per day, meaning the state is not charged for that time.
The state would save some money, which providers would lose, but it would prevent children from being forced out of Head Start to remain in the state’s assistance program, she said.
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