Minnesota House Democrats propose spending up to 500 million dollars of the state’s predicted 1.3-billion-dollar budget surplus to beef up early childhood programs. House Speaker Melissa Hortman says, “Even though we can’t make a commitment to fund these early childhood scholarships for the three-year-olds for the next 20 years, it doesn’t mean we should let this year’s three-year-olds go without an opportunity, if we have the money sitting there.”
House Dems’ proposal includes not only scholarships, but also renewed funding for four-thousand pre-K slots, more money for the child care assistance program for families, and to increase pay for child care providers.
Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka says Republicans will move bills forward, but not if they spend every penny of the surplus, borrow to the brink, or institute massive new programs. Republicans have pushed school vouchers in the past. Hortman says Democrats reject vouchers but support early learning scholarships.
Additional info:
House Democrats say their plan would provide $190M one-time money for early learning scholarships serving an additional 25K kids… $190M
for the child care assistance program which would help several thousand families… and $60M to continue funding for four thousand expiring slots in pre-school programs.