Politics & Government

Sequestration Cuts to Shrink Head Start Programs

Low-income families hit hard as federal grant money gets cut.

By William Callahan

Fairfax County could cut some transportation services along with coveted spots in its Head Start programs, which provides early education to children from low-income families and prepares them to enter school.

Federal sequestration has reduced grant money for the program by about $400,000 for Head Start, which serves children ages 3 and 4, and Early Head Start, for infants and children up to age three.

In order to cope with the dip in federal funding, Fairfax County staff recommended Tuesday the county shorten the Early Head Start program by about 20 days, potentially leaving 48 children without full-year care.

Recommendations also included cutting transportation for about 60 children in the Head Start program at the Greater Mount Vernon Community Head Start Center, and reducing Early Head Start enrollment at the center, leaving 12 fewer spots for children in need of services this coming school year. 

Spots in the county’s home-based Early Head Start program would also be cut under staff’s recommendation, leaving another 12 children who get care at their homes without services.

The list of reductions was submitted to the federal government on June 15; the county is waiting to receive approval to move forward.

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Children currently enrolled in the program are safe from cuts and will continue to get service, officials said. But fewer openings in Early Head Start could leave some children in need without care. And many of the children affected by the cuts to transportation would likely drop out of Head Start, said Pat Harrison, deputy county executive. 

“Needless to say, these were difficult decisions and options to identify,” said Anne-Marie Twohie, director of the county’s office for children. “We’ve done so with a great deal of thought, recognizing that while we’re able to retain services for 3- and 4-year-olds, that infants and toddlers are also a very vulnerable population.”

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Fairfax County supervisors are stressing the importance of and need for the program and urging staff to find alternatives. 

More than 800 children are currently on the wait list for the program, and supervisors have repeatedly said they’re committed to meet the growing needs.

“It’s just unacceptable,” said Supervisor Jeff McKay (D-Lee). “This is one that our school system is going to pay a heavy price for.”

Supervisors were unable to fund expansion of Head Start in theFiscal Year 2014 budget because they didn’t know how the program would be impacted by sequestration. They established an $8 million reserve to lighten the potential blows from the federal cuts.

McKay wanted to know if $400,000 of the reserve could be used to avoid reductions.

County Executive Ed Long said the reserve was originally established to give the county time to come up with a long-term solution for the growing head start problem.

“It is a candidate,” Long said. “The intent of that was to buy us more time and come up with a longer-term solution, so if the board wanted to use $400,000 to do that, we could certainly do that.”

Transportation services, which cost about $95,000, would be ideal options for reserve money, Harrison said.

With such a significant number of kids on the waitlist for services, both supervisors and school board members have said they’re committed to sitting down and coming up with a fix, even if it means finding alternative programs that could provide similar service.

The groups don't, at the moment, have a sit-down scheduled.

“This old model of head start doesn’t work,” McKay said. “The federal funding is going to continue to go away.”

Board Chairman Sharon Bulova suggested supervisors needed to sit down with the county’s representatives on Capitol Hill.

“This is a really sad situation,” she said, calling the proposed reductions “pretty harsh.”

But for now, the reductions stand.

Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill), chairman of the Board’s human services committee, said that her colleagues had to accept that sequestration was here to stay.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.

Staff will come back to supervisors with a recommendation on how they can use funds from the FY2013 budget carryover later this year.


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