Vermont Early Care and Education Financing Study: Estimated Costs, Financing Options, and Economic Impacts

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Karoly, Lynn A.

Contributor:

Doss, Christopher Joseph

Strong, Aaron

Language:

English

Other Title:

Vermont Early Care and Education Financing Study

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2023

Summary:

Stakeholders in the public and private sectors in Vermont have been increasing the state's investments in high-quality early care and education (ECE) programs for children not yet in kindergarten. Yet many families are not reached by the funds currently available, especially to afford care for infants and toddlers. Additionally, the ECE workforce has long been underpaid, both in terms of cash wages and benefits. Further expansion of public funds to ensure that young children can participate in high-quality ECE in the mixed-delivery system (both public and private providers) requires an understanding of the cost of high-quality ECE, what is a reasonable contribution families can make to the cost of the ECE they consume, and the potential public-sector revenue options to fill the gap. Vermont Act 45, passed in 2021, expressed a need to support Vermont's economy by providing access to high-quality ECE and ensuring that the state's early educators are fairly compensated and well supported. The act included a requirement for a financing study. To meet this requirement, the authors estimate the cost for high-quality ECE in Vermont using a mixed-delivery system. In addition, to understand the size of the funding gap that must be filled to expand subsidies to more families, the authors consider several designs for a sliding-scale subsidy schedule. The authors also identify a set of feasible and stable revenue streams that can be used alone or in combination to fill the funding gap and employ a series of economic models to estimate the net fiscal and economic impact of the effects of the increased subsidies and the identified revenue.