Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to the joint meeting of the Education Culture Committee and Health and Human Services Committee.

It's Wednesday, April 22nd.

We have a several items on the agenda today, three to be exact.

The FY27 recommended budget for DHHS early childhood services program area.

The early care and education non-departmental account.

And the Children's Opportunity Alliance non-departmental account.

And I'm joined by my co-chair, council member sales, and the members of both committees.

And this is obviously our budget consideration of these items.

But it's also one of no more important conversation we're going to have all budget and talking about how our youngest children have what they need to thrive.

And we also know we're in an environment of where there's a lot of instability at the federal level, which makes this discussion even more timely and more important.

So I appreciate all the work of everyone here.

Yes, I I think we've met so many times and we've seen these two entities evolve.

And I'm you know very grateful to see all of the progress that's happening at the state to ensure that there's going to be more openings for our students and making sure more resources are available for the scholarship funds as well.

And so just looking forward to seeing how we continue to evolve in this difficult budget season to support the growth of pre-K.

So thank you, Coach Sale.

So I'll turn it over to Ms.

Rodriguez Hernandez to kick us off.

I know you want to tee us up and then we'll do a little presentation.

Yes.

Go ahead.

Well, good afternoon, everyone.

I want to start by thanking our partners at the Department of Health and Human Services and Children's Opportunity Alliance and Office of Management and Budget today for preparing the information for today's work session.

I'll quickly go over the executive summary of the discussion the committee will be having today and some programmatic updates before turning it over to our partners for their presentation and then to discuss any budget uh items for the committee's consideration.

Um today, as noted, the committee will be reviewing three separate areas under early care and education within the Department of Health and Human Services budget and non-departmental accounts that the department has oversight over.

So the first is their early childhood services program area, which resides under the children, youth and family services area in DHHS.

The second is the early care and education non-departmental account, and then the third is the Children's Opportunity Alliance or the Early Care and Education Coordinating Entities non-departmental account.

And just to note that on April 27th, the joint committee will also review the remainder of the Children, Youth and Family Services Area budget and additional school-based programs on April 27th.

The county executive recommended a decrease of about $3.8 million or 6.3% for the entire children, youth and families service area.

And that's primarily due to the reorganization that we've been discussing in the AGHS committee work sessions, but um just for the joint committee's note also that DGS underwent an internal reorganization that shifted some program areas to help streamline and make the department's work more efficient.

So that decreases in the children, youth and family services areas primarily due to that reorganization with some services shifting to their partner at behavioral health and crisis services.

For the early childhood services program area itself, um, they absorbed two uh program areas that was one the child care subsidies program and the head start program.

So those were in separate areas within DHHS.

Now they are under the early childhood services area.

The executive is recommending a 310,339 or 1.4% increase for the program area, and that reflects the realignment of FY26 to 27.

So that comparison is if based on the current realignment, the FY26 dollars to the recommended FY27 dollars.

For the early care and education non-departmental account, the county executive is recommending a $652,485 increase or 4% from the FY26 approved.

And for the Children's Opportunity Alliance, he's recommending a 2.5% inflationary adjustment increase or at $19,387.

For the committee's discussion, there is one item that would be added to the reconciliation list per the council president's budget approach, which is $5,000 $500,000 for additional funding to the working parents assistance program, which we'll discuss at a later point.

Um on April 16th, the HHS Committee reviewed the department's uh operating budget equity tool analysis report.

And the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice does not provide OBETS for non-departmental accounts, being early care and education and children's opportunity alliance.

And details on the OBET score for the department can be found on page four.

On page two, we have a comparison of the early childhood services program area of the FY26 approved to the recommended based on both years showing the realignment that HHS is currently under, as well as for the non-departmental accounts.

And would just like to note that for the early care and education non-departmental account, they do have FTEs, and that increased from 16 in FY26 approved to 23 recommended FTEs for FI27.

On page three to four, we provide the descriptions of the three areas where we've been discussing today.

Moving to programmatic updates, the early childhood services has currently has three uh vacancies.

One is a new vacant position, one position is in the recruitment stage, and one is on hold.

For those in the AGS committee, you may remember that when we discussed the vacancies at the overview session, um, some are placed on hold because they are grant funded and they're awaiting to determine the final grant amounts before moving forward in hiring that position.

For the multi-program adjustments, um, the early childhood services program era just reflects that reorganization of head start and child care subsidies into their uh new program area.

So that's about $7 million.

Um while head start and child care subsidies combined in FY26 had eight FTEs, there's only a 1.7 FDE increase for the early childhood services program area, and that's just due to AGS's realignment of positions for more efficiency throughout the department, supporting other efforts such as Vantage.

When we look at the subsidized seats, and I know our partners will go into that in more detail.

I just wanted to highlight the chart that's on page six that shows you um the main programs we have here for locally subsidized programs as well as those subsidized by federal grant from Head Start and Early Head Start.

And so that is on the table on page six.

Um did just want to note that this year, as we discussed last year, the head start grant that the county received was based on a new model that included not just MCPS providing Head Start for our pre-K students, but also community-based providers providing head start.

And the department chose to focus that on early head start, so those infants and toddlers receiving those services, and that should roll out later this year.

Um there are additional updates on the shared services alliance, um, as we mentioned in the previous work sessions as well, where the early childhood services program launched this collaboration to provide 20 selected child care providers of various sizes to participate in it and provide shared services around coaching, business coaching, networking with other providers and access to discounts for supplies and education materials, as well as receiving a telehealth option for providers for themselves and for their employees.

And so that is in going into effect as well.

In addition, the early care and education facility fund um launched its first ever version of this fund to expand and improve child care facilities through forgivable and zero interest loans, where providers can either choose to expand and provide additional classroom seats or enhance the quality of their current seats based on Excel ratings and things like that.