CFPA released the following statements regarding the proposed state budget released today by the 2018-19 Conference Budget Committee which neglected to reinstate funding previously cut in the last recession for serving healthy meals to low-income children in child care. Because of today’s budget deal, the state’s child care providers will continue to be shut out from critical funding that would help them put healthy food on the table for children with the greatest need.
“While we commend the Legislature for creating more subsidized child care slots for low-wage working families, the state has undermined their own efforts to protect the health and well-being of our most vulnerable children by not allocating funds that would reimburse child care providers for serving healthy meals to lower-income children,,” said Tracey Patterson, Director of Legislation for California Food Policy Advocates. “California has, once again, missed the opportunity to refund a critical program that for over thirty years provided lower-income children with quality and nutritious foods – which is vital to the health, well-being and future of our state.”
“While it is unfortunate that our leaders failed to prioritize healthy meals for California’s most vulnerable children, we are confident that this wrong will eventually be made right,“ said Melissa Cannon, Policy Advocate at California Food Policy Advocates. “There is a reason our state invested in nutrition in child care for decades – it works at keeping our children healthy while providing our most important teachers with the resources they need to provide high quality care to young children. We are prepared to continue advocating to restore this important and critical funding under the next administration.”
On June 12th we held a coalition call to discuss what this means for next steps and the campaign moving forward:
Questions? Contact Melissa Cannon at 510.433.1122 ext 102, or visit www.cfpa.net/foodwithcare
