By Sequnely Gray, on June 25th, 2012 
On May 14, 2012, members of Empower DC’s Child Care for All Campaign along with their children-otherwise known as the BABY BRIGADE-visited the Wilson Building to educate the city council on the importance of the child care subsidy/voucher program and the challenges community-based child care centers are having on a day to day basis to keep their businesses running. The child care subsidy/voucher program is a federally funded program that was designed to subsidize child care for working families and parents that want to continue their education or seek employment.
As we visited council office after council office with our babies, we were puzzled as to why no one really cared about child care. We got the same answers over and over, “we are focused on getting extra money for the TANF program so that we can get these 6,000 families assessed and back to work or school.” No one even stopped to think that most or all of those TANF families will need subsidized child care to go back to work or school. Even with working parents, providers and teen parents from Anacostia’s New Heights Teen Parents Program expressing the challenges we’ve had finding available slots for our children in child care centers, making ends meet and completing the intake process, we were still unable to get solid support on restoring the budget for child care and making the intake process more accessible.
Despite our efforts, the mayor’s proposed $5.7 million dollar cut from the child care subsidy voucher program was voted into law on June 5, 2012. This budget cut will affect about 400 hundred families who won’t have access to a voucher or will be in jeopardy of loosing their voucher. The budget cut will also make it even harder for community-based and family child development centers contracted by the Office of the State Superintendent (OSSE) to operate and provide quality child care. Mainly the community-based centers will suffer.
It is very clear that the mayor and the city council don’t know or understand the value of early care and education BEFORE KINDERGARTEN! So, it is our job as parents, providers and community members to work harder to educate these city officials and stand up and advocate for our little people. They are our future leaders and we have to make sure they have the proper tools and support they need to be successful. LISTEN UP!!! DC DOESN’T WORK WITHOUT CHILD CARE!!! SO, LET’S STRENGTHEN OUR COMMUNITIES AND SUPPORT COMMUNITY-BASED CHILD CARE CENTERS!!
In addition to lobbying the council in their offices, Child Care for All Campaign members Sequnely Gray, Toneisha Johnson and Shantise Summers also testified during the city council’s budget hearing on human services. Coucilmember Jim Graham, Chair of the Committee on Human Services, seemed to agree that the intake process needs improvement. On the otherhand, his implication that providing a subsidy so that parents can meet their child care needs is like providing substance abuse treatment to drug addicts is nuts. In the District of Columbia, child care typically costs $18,200 per year, per child. You don’t have to be anything like a drug addict to need help meeting those costs.
For more information and/or to join Empower DC’s Child Care For All Campaign, contact Sequnely Gray at childcare@empowerdc.org or call 202-234-9119 ext. 103.
By Guest Contributor, on June 8th, 2012 
Cross-posted from The Washington Teacher Written by Candi Peterson
With another school year coming to a close, more excess letters will be handed out by DC Public Schools to another group of Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) members as well as Council of School Officers (CSO) union members. Among those impacted will be DCPS School Psychologists. Historically, school psychologists’ have been itinerant workers who were centrally funded and supervised directly by the Office of Special Education. School psychologists were generally responsible for several schools in most cases (sometimes more). Last school year, itinerant school social workers whose positions had previously been centrally funded by the Office of Special Education (OSE) were excessed and are now paid from the local school budget.
“WTU school psychologists will be officially excessed from their central office positions on June 1, 2012. The effective date of the excess will be the last day of school June 14, 2012”, according to a revised May 2012 “SEC and School Psychologist FAQs” that was sent to relevant staff on May 18, 2012 by Jason Kamras, Chief of Human Capital. By definition an “excess is an elimination of a Teacher’s position at a particular school due to a decline in student enrollment, a reduction in the local school budget, a closing or consolidation, a restructuring, or a change in the local school program, when such an elimination is not a ‘reduction in force’ (RIF) or ‘abolishment.” Not unlike 333 DCPS teachers who were excessed on May 4, 2012, DC school psychologists will no longer hold their current positions at the end of the school year.
DCPS Question: The SEC and school Psychologist FAQs packets posed the following question, “What will happen to the centrally-funded Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) school psychologists who currently report to the Office of Special Education (OSE) ?
DCPS Answer:
WTU (school) psychologists “will have until August 15, 2012 to find a budgeted position at a school. If they cannot find a position by then, and if they meet certain qualifications, they will have access to the three excessing options in the WTU contract: 1) a $25,000 buyout; 2) early retirement, assuming 20 years of creditable service; or 3) a one year placement at a school during which they will continue to search for a budgeted position. To qualify for the three excessing options, WTU members must meet three criteria: 1) earn an Effective or Highly Effective IMPACT rating for 2011-12 school year; 2) attain permanent status (which one earns after two years of service in DCPS) by the effective date of excessing; and 3) have not opted into the IMPACT plus system.” Since Council of School Officers School Psychologists who are twelve month employees have a different collective bargaining agreement , they will be subject to a different set of rules than WTU members.
DCPS question: What will happen to centrally funded Council of School Officers (CSO) (school) psychologists who currently report to Office of Special Education (OSE)?
DCPS answer:
“They will receive reassignment letters on June 1, 2012 explaining that they will be working at a school site, not for OSE, next school year. They will have until June 11, 2012 to identify a principal willing to hire them. After that point, the DCPS Office of Human Capital will begin to place them into remaining vacancies. This process will be completed by June 15, 2012.”
Another reorganization is also underway for school year 2012-13 in DC Public Schools which includes a Reduction In Force (RIF) for many Special Education Coordinators (SECs).
Earlier during the DC Public Schools budgeting process for SY’ 2012-13, funding was no longer provided to local schools for Special Education Coordinator (SECs) positions. Many DC Public school principals complained about not being funded to keep their SECs. After an uproar by administrators, funding was made available to local schools for a small number of Special Education Coordinators (SECs) -approximately 40-50 according to my source. It is my understanding, that monies alloted for school social workers funding,which initially was part of the required school budget for 2012-13 was changed to flexible spending – thereby allowing principals to decide whether they wanted a school social worker or not. Last school year, all schools were required to have a .5 (half-time) school social worker at a minimum depending on the student population. Having the option to decide whether to hire a social worker or not, some schools used the monies for other positions such as the SECs position. It is sadto say that the . . . → Read More: Another DCPS RIF and More Excesses Up Ahead !
By Liane Scott, on May 27th, 2012 
Subsidized child care, which provides low-income parents with vouchers that pay a portion of their child care costs, is one of the most important work support programs available in DC and around the country. In Washington, DC, child care costs typically range from $10,000 – $20,000 per year, per child. Without subsidies that help make child care affordable for low-income families, thousands of parents in DC are unable to work, unable to look for work or attend school so they are better qualified for work. Of the 48,176 children who qualify for the program less than half are enrolled. Yet, Mayor Vince Gray’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 would reduce funding for the subsidized child care program by $5.7 million dollars. As you can see in the following video, Empower DC’s Baby Brigade isn’t standing for it.
By Liane Scott, on May 1st, 2012 
Sam Ford Interviews Homeless for ABC 7
April 17, 2012, at his Ward 7 budget town hall meeting, Mayor Vince Gray said, “Just so people are clear. We’re not cutting those things. People will tell you anything. Sometimes they even think they’re right. We’re not cutting homeless services, we’re not cutting affordable housing, we’re not cutting Medicaid, we’re not cutting TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) and we’re not cutting the Summer Youth Employment Program.” Despite this, advocates for social services and affordable housing programs, like the Fair Budget Coalition who’ve been organizing around these issues, will assure you that the mayor’s proposed budget will in no way meet the growing need of DC’s low- and even moderate-income residents in these difficult economic times. In particular, the homeless families living in DC General, whose numbers continue to grow, do not believe maintaining an increasingly tenuous status quo represents their needs or wishes as taxpaying citizens of the District of Columbia. These families made their feelings known at the DC City Council Budget Hearing on April 30, 2012. Only two elected officials, Council Chair Kwame Brown and Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry were present at the hearing. ABC 7’s Sam Ford and the Washington Times’ Andrew Harnick covered the story.
The above videos make clear that DC’s safety net isn’t meeting the needs of many of our residents, but given the time constraints of a local news broadcast, it doesn’t go into much depth. For more insight, it doesn’t hurt to follow the analysis of folks like Howard University professor David Schwartzman, who routinely follows the DC budget.
Cross-posted from The Mail @ DC Watch written by David Schwartzman
Our Mayor proposes another DC budget balanced on the backs of the poor; should we be surprised? On April 20, we learned that our former mayor, Anthony Williams, has been appointed as Chief Executive of the Federal City Council, the leading local think tank of the 1 percent, or is it the 0.1 percent? (Note that Frank Keating, the former Republican governor of Oklahoma and now president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, is the FCC president). Anthony Williams served on Mayor Gray’s transition team and was also just appointed to head the new Tax Revision Commission. As CFO of the Control Board, Anthony Williams was a key architect of the Urban Structural Adjustment Program that balanced our budget on the backs of our poor, while favoring the wealthy with tax cuts (the Tax Parity Act). The Control Board regime closed DC General Hospital, privatized municipal functions, cut the so-called safety net, and increased our income gap to record levels, while setting the course for Mayor Fenty’s agenda that brought this assault on our working and middle class majority to a new level. And Mayor Gray has not unexpectedly continued along the same road.
While our mayor and council deserve credit for their liberal policies regarding sexual orientation and immigrants rights, their economic and public education policies should brand them as Republicans posing as Democrats. For example, our mayor just endorsed new DCPS school closings based on an IFF study funded by the Walton Foundation (Walmart), opening up new opportunities for the semi-privatization of public education. Colbert King just characterized conservative Democrats one hundred years ago as favoring “the wealthy, to whom much has been given, have no stake in anybody else’s success,” http://tinyurl.com/6twrwpf, an apt description of most of our local Democratic elected officials, and of course the Republican posing as an Independent, David Catania. When will these Democrats follow President Obama’s example by at least claiming to go on an “Offense Over Taxes on the Wealthy,” a headline from the New York Times?
Now to address the DC budget process. For FY 2013, Mayor Gray has proposed even more hurtful budget cuts in low income programs, amounting to roughly seventy million dollars, which include programs involving health care coverage for low income residents, affordable housing, homeless services. and cash assistance for families with children (for details go to http://www.dcfpi.org). This proposal comes on top of $239 million already cut from low income programs since 2008, according to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s budget data. And while the mayor and the council squabble about where to spend the $79 million surplus, specifically whether to pay back city employees for their four-day furlough taken at the beginning of 2011, the elephant sitting in the Wilson Building remains unnoticed, the under-taxed, now growing income of the top 5 . . . → Read More: Another DC Budget Balanced on the Backs of the Poor?
By Liane Scott, on March 9th, 2012 
This post has two features. The first is the latest edition of We Act Radio’s Live Wire program, The Empower DC Community Hour, which airs on Monday evenings from 7:00 – 8:00 PM. This week’s show was hosted by Empower DC Afforadable Housing Organizer Linda Leaks and focused on recent proposals by Congress and the Obama Administration to raise the minimum rent that section-8 housing voucher holders are required to pay. This weeks guests were Venus Little from the Task Force to Oppose the Minimum Rent Increase and Diane Hunter from the Perry School Community Service Center, Inc. Please listen and support the show.
[haiku url=”http://www.grassrootsmediaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Live-Wire-EDC-Community-Hour-3-5-12.wav” title=”The Empower DC Community Hour for March 5, 2012″]
Empower DC Community Education Event
This second is a cross-post from Kathy Baer’s really informative blog Poverty & Policy, from which I took the title of this post:
What Would HUD’s Proposed Minimum Rent Mandate Mean for Extremely Poor DC Residents? Researching the impacts of the mandatory minimum rent proposal in the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget, I asked myself what it would mean for extremely low-income District residents who benefit from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s rental housing programs.
The answer, I think, is maybe less than for the poorest beneficiaries in most of the country. But it’s hard to be sure because we don’t know how broadly HUD would apply the new policy.
Here’s what we do know.
DCHA (the District’s public housing authority) doesn’t impose a minimum rent, as it could under the current law. It’s chosen — wisely I think — to let the lowest of low-income households conserve their cash for other needs.
These, recall, are households whose adjusted incomes are so low that the usual 30% they’d owe for rent is negligible, except to them.
In one scenario, they’d have to pay $75 a month, as would more than half a million of the poorest households nationwide, though DCHA could grant hardship exemptions for some of them.
But DCHA is one of the 34 public housing authorities that participate in HUD’s Moving to Work demonstration project. As such, it’s exempt from many of the rules most PHAs must comply with.
So it’s possible that DCHA could preserve its current rent policy for most residents who’d otherwise be affected.
According to DCHA’s latest annual report, 12,752 individuals and families had Housing Choice vouchers in its MTW program. It plans to increase the number to 12,784 by the end of this fiscal year.
DCHA says that close to 20,000 additional residents live in public housing units.
If the proposed policy change is like the one in a bill the House is considering — and it does seem that way — then the minimum mandatory rent wouldn’t automatically apply to either the voucher holders or the public housing residents.
Or so I gather from a bill analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
But the minimum mandatory would apply to residents of project-based Section 8 housing, i.e., units that have federally-funded vouchers attached to them.
That, says CBPP, would put 1,273 extremely low-income District households at risk of “serious hardship and even homelessness.”
Do we really need anything more to push up our homelessness rates?
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