Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: As the the in between the agency of education and the k. The family child care homes. Because as I think I have up here, there are two zero three family child care homes that participate in CACFP from that. And so that would be a lot of different homes to be contacting the AOE. And so that we have the sponsor organizations as, like, the intermediary, and we sometimes say, like, a fiscal agent because they help make sure that the funding is reimbursed and do a lot of that paperwork. So it's paperwork heavy, visiting, and doing certification. But Amy can speak to more of that too. Yeah, of course. As of '25, well, as of today, when we had our data checked, there are only three sponsoring organizations in this date. And so that is Brock Community Action, Capstone Community Action, and Winston Prouty Center for Child Development. And in 2024, we lost two sponsoring organizations because the federal funding allotment just did not cover or come close to covering the cost that was incurred onto them to actually operate these programs. So on top of these administrative funding challenges that the three remaining sponsoring organizations face, they're also struggling to manage capacity just geographically, to physically get in person three times a year to all of the sites that they have to sponsor and manage. So just physically, it's difficult on top of the administrative challenges with all the paperwork and everything. Okay, so the federal funding gap impacts our family child care homes' ability to participate in this program because as of October 2024, which is the most recent data we have but are hoping to get updated data soon, about 44% of family child care homes were participating in the CACFP. And it's important to note that there are other barriers to participating in this program beyond just sponsor capacity, but without a sponsoring organization, the family child care homes cannot participate at all. So if we continue to lose sponsoring organizations like we did in 2024, we'll just reduce our capacity for these homes to be able to participate in the program at all. So due to the funding gap, sponsor organizations are experiencing strained budgets. They may have to stop participation, which would lead to a reduction in family childcare homes who can participate. So with a small state investment, sponsoring organizations will have be able to meet the gap as we just spoke to. But then hopefully with this $182,000 which was calculated with a lot of interviews with these sponsor organizations to assess what the exact gap is and how they could increase their capacity. But with this state investment, they'd have increased capacity to support onboarding new family childcare homes into the program and also maintaining the current level of participation that they have, and then hopefully making it possible for more CACFP sponsor organizations to come on board, and then lightening the load of administrative burden in the physical driving around and visiting all these sponsor sites, limiting that burden on the current sponsor organizations. And I wanted to share this note because this is specifically related to the funding that was appropriated last session, was that an early childhood education program reached out to my colleague, Keely at Unger Free Vermont, who oversees our early childhood programs. I think she testified with you all last year. They reached out to her and said that they would be interested in expanding their sponsorship. So right now, they're a family child care center. They oversee their sister program. So they kind of sponsor just one other program, a family childcare home. But they said that with the sponsor funding in the state budget, they would be interested in having a conversation about becoming a sponsor. She says we're a current sponsor now, but just for our sister organization. But if Addison County needed someone to do that for home providers, I'd be happy to have that conversation about what it might look like. And if there is funding to access, we might be able to pull it off. So that would be really huge and would be able to take a big chunk of family child care homes off the plate of Brock and be able to kind of spread that work out a little bit and be able to hopefully onboard more family child care homes, drawing down more federal funds through that program.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: How much federal funds is is our fee drawn down?

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Yeah, that's a really good question and we've been trying to find that number and working with the agency of education to get a more specific number. And I know Keely's working on that right now. I think the way that they have it in their budget, it's like the amount that gets reimbursed to the homes is in like a line item with other funding, like with yeah. So it's kinda hard to tease out exactly how much, but we're working on a report for that right now. So as soon as that's done, I'd happy to send that to you.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It'd be important to know if it costs $182,000 to administer a fund that draws out $182,000

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Oh, yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: There's a

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: It's significantly more than $182,000. Yeah. And I wish I had the number off the top of my head, but I don't for some reason. So I will make sure that I can get that report to you. But, yeah, there was just, like, a snag in getting it separated in the budget for AOE of, like, exactly how much it is, but it's significant. It's, yeah, it's quite a bit of money that's drawn down in the millions. So yes. Okay. Where was I here? So just a note on how funding is distributed, just in case this is helpful as well. So the funding is distributed amongst sponsor organizations based on the number of family child care homes that they serve. So it's not entitlement funding and it's not distributed evenly. It's calculated based on the percentage of family childcare homes total, based on how many each sponsor organization actually sponsors. And it's distributed by the agency of education. And so each year, the Agency of Education could report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee about the amount needed for the next fiscal year if this were to become ongoing funding. And they could do this calculation based on the number of family child care homes that are currently in the current fiscal year and any expected increase and work with inflation and find out how much would be needed for any future years. So just to finish up, I'll put this back on the board. This is just a reminder again that we're returning with the request for $182,000 which would be an incentive for the sponsor organizations to both fill the gap in federal funding and allow them to continue sponsoring this really critical program that gets meals and snacks to kids in childcare, and hopefully incentivize future sponsor organizations to either come back, the folks that used to do this and were no longer able to, hopefully see if they want to come back into the work, or these new folks, like the person who reached out to Kelly and is interested in doing this work. But I wanna wrap up and hand things over to Amy Funding, who's with Barack Community Action. She can really speak to, like, what this work looks like and kind of give you that day to day and all the work that they have on their plate, which is really essential to making sure kids have appropriate meals and snacks in childcare. But I can answer any other questions that are

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: kind of about the background, there are any more. Any questions, folks? Great, thank you.

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Yeah, great, and I'll just leave this up here. Yep, thank you so much.

[Amy Fleming (BROC Community Action)]: Good morning. Thank you. Excuse me. As Autumn mentioned, I'm Amy Fleming and I am the Nutrition and Education Department Manager at Brock Community Action in Rutland. We are a sponsoring organization of the CACFP. And I prepared a little bit of a testimony that kind of really speaks to how we were able to utilize the appropriation that was allotted to us last year. And then also kind of leave it open to questions for clarity on how everything with the CFP works, just to help you guys kind of dot all the Is and cross all the Ts if you have any questions. So last year, when we're speaking to gap, the shortfall, my organization, I can only speak for my own organization, we faced a almost $41,000 shortfall in administrative funding just to operate the program. I've been working in the CACFP for eighteen years now at Brock. And over the years, as the number of daycare homes, in general, not even ones that participate in the CACFP, but just that are operating in general has decreased significantly in that time. That gap has just continued to grow and grow and grow, and the number of homes continues to shrink. That appropriation really was a lifeline for us. We were able to have almost even funding to operate last year. And going into last fiscal year, I did have to have a difficult conversation with our CEO who thankfully really sees the value in the CACFP and supports us and wants to continue to be a sponsor. But we really had to discuss, as this gap continues to grow, we typically subsidize the operational costs of running CACFP with CSBG funds or something like that. So having that appropriation last year allowed that money that would have typically gone to us to subsidize our program went right back to direct service. So that's massive. That's $41,000 of food assistance, fuel assistance, weatherization assistance that didn't have to subsidize our program. And as Autumn alluded to the daycare homes, definitely they have to have a sponsoring organization to access the program. In having conversations last year with the homes to ask them what impact would not having access to the food program have on your childcare? And the resounding two answers were either they would have to close their program altogether because with the rising cost of food, I mean, we all know, The reimbursement takes a huge load off of that budget for the providers. So many said they might have to consider closing their daycare program, or they would have to request that parents bring the food for the children, which would just put an immense burden financially on already strained budgets of households across Vermont. We sponsor three counties. So I alone cover Addison, Rutland and Bennington County. And so I'm responsible for all the participating child cares in those three counties. I did just pick up Addison County when CCR closed. I believe it was January 2021. They had to make that decision to no longer sponsor the program. And so Capstone picked up Chittenden County and I was asked to take on Addison County at that time, which we did. So those are kind of like the real key things that our concern is and our goal is to stay in operation because without access to the food program, programs would close, children would lose access to the food that they're being served. It's such a high level of nutrition that they're getting in childcare now. So that's kind of like what I had written for testimony. Wanted to kind of leave, because the CACFP can be a little bit confusing because it is operated a little bit different from centers and homes. And again, the main thing being how it's accessed. So if there's any questions that you would like me to shed some light on, I can give you I don't know if this was exactly what you were asking, but I can speak to our numbers. So last year we drew down a total of $265,804 reimbursement dollars for that was paid directly to the childcare providers. Our admin dollars were $68,403 So as Autumn spoke, we get $150 in administrative funds per home for the first 50. I only have 36. So it goes up after like from 50 to 200, you get, I think it's like 100 and maybe 7 or $8 or 157 or 58. But so we get $150 per home per month. And so last month we drew down $5,550 in administrative funds for the 37 homes that we've sponsored. So our actual operating budget last year was just a little over $109,000 And obviously $68,500 in admin funding. There's a 40, that $41,000 shortfall is huge. So we're able to administer the program effectively, but it doesn't allow us to again, expand to recruit those homes that are not participating currently in the CACFP. So it's about a We fluctuate around 40% to 50% participation in my three counties anyways. Some

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of

[Amy Fleming (BROC Community Action)]: the homes that continue to just choose not to participate have been operating for as long as I've been working in the CACFP. We've tried to establish communication with them just to kind of find out why, not even try to sell them on the program, just kind of find out what those barriers are. We're still working on that. They just, they don't wanna talk. So I don't know what, I wish I could shed some light as to why the ones that aren't currently participating aren't, but that's definitely something that we'd like to tackle. But as you can see, we are a staff of one, Winston County is a staff of one, and Capstone who covers nine counties is a staff of two. That's a lot to cover with one or two staff members.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You're in each of these homes once a month?

[Amy Fleming (BROC Community Action)]: About, yeah, because I have to visit each one at the very least three times per year unannounced. And at least one of those visits, have to observe a meal time. So it gets a little tricky because you think, oh, you can go down to Bennington and you can visit four homes in a day. But when you're trying to hit a meal, their times are all served at the same time. So it requires multiple trips back to these locations. So as a staff of one, it's a lot, but we make it work. Additional support would allow us perhaps even to bring a half time staff member. Ideally, and I've had conversations with Pat Sirgini, who is my counterpart at Capstone, Capstone, we would love to be able to dedicate some funding to create a position that works for the three sponsors and focus strictly on recruitment. Maybe going and finding out, having these conversations with these providers that we just don't have time to chase them down. I reach out multiple times a year to the non participating sponsor childcare homes and a few will respond, many won't. So someone having boots on the ground that can dedicate full time to would be like, if we're talking like dream scenario. But even just a little bit of administrative funding would allow us to do a little bit of that work and free up our time to focus on those sites.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So essentially this money goes to the agency of education and they essentially distribute it to the sponsoring organizations who then handle administering the program. Yeah,

[Amy Fleming (BROC Community Action)]: exactly. Administering all aspects of the program, which includes oversight. We're responsible for training the providers and then obviously just your day to day operations and

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: what have you.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I have much better understanding now than what you did last year when we were discussing this. And I assume you are doing the same presentation to the agriculture food security committee as well.

[Amy Fleming (BROC Community Action)]: I believe so. I think we I had a conversation with Keely, it was a little while ago, and she was working on some things. I actually am going be meeting with her this afternoon. A bit more.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: A key place to get to build support as well.

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Yeah, great.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Any other questions, committee members?

[Autumn (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Great. Thank you

[Amy Fleming (BROC Community Action)]: so much for your time.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. Really helpful, yeah, thank you. Matt, I'd like you to maintain a list of budget requests so we don't forget about them and this would be sort of number one.