CA Budget: Statement on Missing Afterschool Funding
from Youth & Family Advocates
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 9, 2019 — Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom released his revised state budget proposal. The California Afterschool Advocacy Alliance issued this joint statement in response:
“This budget, meant to support working families, has a disappointing and harmful blind spot: the underfunded afterschool programs that nearly 400,000 working parents already depend on for child care. If we don’t protect afterschool programs by adequately funding them, we are taking a step backward in our state’s effort to make sure children get quality child care and parents get the help they need.
“Afterschool programs have endured years of underfunding by cutting their services and the number of students they serve. Without action this year, many programs will be forced to close their doors. We call on the legislature to act and support low-income, working families by saving our state’s afterschool programs.”
California Afterschool Advocacy Alliance Steering Committee Members
After-School All-Stars, Los Angeles; arc; Bay Area Community Resources; Boys & Girls Clubs of Carson; California School-Age Consortium; The Children's Initiative; California Teaching Fellow Foundation; EduCare Foundation; Heart of Los Angeles; LA's BEST Afterschool Enrichment Program; Partnership for Children & Youth; Think Together; Woodcraft Rangers; YMCA of San Diego County
Background
Championed by leaders in both parties, including Gov. Newsom during his term as mayor of San Francisco and during his gubernatorial campaign, California’s publicly funded afterschool programs serve hundreds of thousands of students daily.
Publicly funded afterschool programs operate in communities with the highest levels of poverty. They improve school attendance and graduation rates, develop workforce skills, prevent crime and substance abuse, and enable low-income parents to work by filling a critical child care need.
Afterschool programs are stretched to their breaking point after years of rising costs. Each time the state minimum wage increases without additional funding from the state, afterschool programs sink deeper into deficit. Since 2007, the state minimum wage has increased 50 percent, but funding for afterschool has only increased 9 percent.
A $112.8 million budget request to sustain afterschool programs is before the legislature, as well as two bills: AB 1725 (Carrillo) and AB 1085 (McCarty).
About the California Afterschool Advocacy Alliance
California Afterschool Advocacy Alliance (CA3) is the statewide voice for expanded learning (afterschool and summer) programs. It is the coalition behind the Save Afterschool Campaign and represents the interests of the half a million children, youth, and their families that rely on publicly funded expanded learning programs throughout California each day. www.saveafterschool.com
Contact: Stephanie Pollick, stephanie@partnerforchildren.org, (510) 830-4200 x1616