Federal Plan for Changes in Child Care Draws Protest

By Erik Eckholm
The New York Times

Friday 10 March 2006

A Bush administration plan to reorganize programs for low-income families has brought protests by service agencies around the country, which fear it signals a waning in the federal commitment to child care assistance for working mothers.

Some 240 agencies and advocacy groups have signed a letter to the secretary of health and human services, Michael O. Leavitt, asking him not to downgrade the Child Care Bureau, a unit created by the Clinton administration to oversee subsidies for low-income mothers and improve the quality of child care.

The proposed change, the letter says, "minimizes the importance of child care assistance in supporting working families, particularly low-income parents."

The letter was delivered yesterday to the Department of Health and Human Services and to Congressional leaders, said Helen Blank of the National Women's Law Center, which collected the signatures. Signers included the Child Welfare League of America, the Y.W.C.A. and Easter Seals.

The apparent downgrading of the Child Care Bureau has also stirred concern in Congress, where Democrats and Republicans are discussing an appeal to the administration.

The plan, which requires no Congressional approval, was made known to lawmakers in a letter from Mr. Leavitt on Feb. 22. Among other changes to improve "efficiency and effectiveness," he wrote, the bureau, which now stands alone, is to be folded into the Office of Family Assistance, which oversees the drive to put welfare mothers into jobs.

All sides agree that child care subsidies are needed to help welfare recipients, the poorest of the poor, go to work. But by law, federal aid is also given more widely to mothers in low-paying jobs, who may be struggling to stay off welfare in the first place.

The Child Care Bureau will send some $5 billion to the states this year for child care programs and oversee the spending of billions more in state funds. It also sponsors research and promotes using day care as an educational opportunity. Placing it in the family assistance office, critics fear, will limit its vision and impact.

"Child care assistance is critical for low-income working families as well as those transitioning off welfare," said Joan Lombardi, who in 1995 became the first chief of the bureau and now heads the Children's Project, a research and advocacy group in Washington. "This is a step backward for working families."

Critics say the change is the latest of several administration decisions that will limit aid for child care in an era when growing legions of the working poor need it more than ever.

But Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for children and families, said in a telephone interview that the planned consolidation of offices would "create synergy."

With welfare reforms, Dr. Horn said, the family assistance office spends less on cash payments to mothers and more on work supports, both for women leaving welfare and for those struggling to avoid it.

"We do believe that with finite resources, we ought to target them on those who are most in need, and those are the people trying to escape welfare," he said.

In another change that has prompted questions, Mr. Leavitt wrote in his letter of Feb. 22 that program officers in the department's 10 regional bureaus would report directly to their respective chiefs in Washington, rather than through regional administrators.

Critics say this will make it harder for regional administrators to coordinate activities and will strengthen the position of political appointees in Washington over career experts in the field. But Dr. Horn said it would eliminate wasteful layers of bureaucracy and help bring consistency to programs around the country.