Tag: iab-daycare and pre-school

America’s child care problem is about to get a lot worse. Here’s why | CNN Politics

CNN
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Sarah Morgan was looking forward to enrolling her 1-year-old son Lucas at the Skagit Valley Family YMCA’s early learning center in Anacortes, Washington, this fall.

Her older son Jameson, 5, had a wonderful experience there, learning his letters, numbers and colors, as well as social skills – all of which smoothed his transition to kindergarten this year.

But in late August, Morgan found out that the YMCA was closing the Anacortes center.

Like many child care providers across the nation, the YMCA has had to rethink its operations with the looming expiration of a $24 billion federal Covid-19 pandemic support program that kept many centers afloat over the past two years. The nonprofit, which received $271,000 for its early learning programs, opted to close the Anacortes location, which served 21 families, so it could funnel its resources into its three remaining centers, said its CEO Dean Snider.

That decision has left the Morgan family scrambling to find alternate arrangements for Lucas. Child care is limited on Anacortes, an island in the northwest part of the state. The YMCA’s closest remaining centers are a 40-minute drive away, which doesn’t fit the work schedules of either her or her husband, Travus. And the nannies they interviewed asked for hourly rates that are close to what Morgan earns.

So Morgan plans to place Lucas with an in-home provider, though she worries he won’t have the same educational opportunities that his older brother had at the YMCA.

“It’s really sad that my next one won’t have that type of experience,” said Morgan, a social worker employed by the state. “It’s just really been devastating.”

Nationwide, more than 70,000 child care programs are projected to close, and about 3.2 million children could lose their spots due to the end of the child care stabilization grant program on September 30, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.

The historic federal investment, which was part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that Democrats passed in March 2021, supported more than 220,000 child care programs, affecting as many as 9.6 million children, according to the federal Administration for Children & Families. It reached more than 8 in 10 licensed child care centers, helping them hold onto workers by offering bonuses and raising wages, cover their rent, mortgage and utilities, buy personal protective equipment and other supplies, and provide mental health support.

“We have not spent that much money on child care previously in the US,” said Julie Kashen, women’s economic justice director at The Century Foundation. “What we learned was that it worked. It kept programs open. It helped address the staffing shortages. It kept children safe and nurtured. It kept parents working.”

Child care in America has long had issues: The costs are steep for both providers and parents, leaving it both in short supply and unaffordable for many families. Last year, the average annual price nationwide was nearly $11,000, according to Child Care Aware of America, though the rates can be much higher depending on the location.

At the same time, the pay is low, making it hard for workers to commit to the industry and for centers to hold onto their staff. Child care workers typically earned $13.71 an hour, or $28,520 a year, in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment remains lower than it was prior to the pandemic.

For Carla Smith, the stabilization grants were a “miracle.”

Smith, who founded Cornerstone Academy in Arlington, Texas, 17 years ago while nursing her newborn son, used $1.1 million in stabilization grants and other federal relief funding to rebuild after enrollment plunged in the first year of the pandemic. She was able to hire more employees and boost the wages of her teachers and administrative staff to as much as $25 an hour. That’s about double what most were earning before and enticed them to stay at the academy.

“It kept the day care open. It kept day care workers employed, and it kept families employed,” said Smith, who now cares for 50 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years.

Now that she won’t receive any additional federal stabilization funds, Smith is worried she might have to close her doors next summer if the church that houses the center doesn’t step in to help. She just raised tuition by up to $200 a month for most children and $600 a month for infants, prompting one family to leave and several others to pull out of the after-school program. She and the assistant director have taken five-figure pay cuts, she laid off one worker and she reduced the hours of the others.

“The next layoff will be myself,” she said, noting that she’s already looking for other jobs so she can keep the academy operating.

Without the stabilization grants, the Chinese-American Planning Council in New York City will have a tougher time hiring and retaining staffers who care for 180 children at six sites, said Mary Cheng, the director of childhood development services. The nearly $600,000 in funding allowed her to provide bonuses of up to $2,500 every six months between July 2021 and this summer, as well as temporarily increase the pay of the after-school staff by a dollar or two. In addition, she used the funds to buy air purifiers and cleaning supplies, as well as provide mental health support for the children and staff.

Now, she’s looking for several teachers and assistant teachers, as well as an education director for one of the sites. But it’s hard to attract candidates when the pay she’s offering – even for the director role – is less than an entry-level public school teacher.

Already, because of the staffing shortage, she’s had to close one classroom in a public housing development, turning away the parents of 12 children.

But the council may have to undertake some more fundamental changes to its child care program, which has been funded by the city since it started in the 1970s. Cheng is looking to raise $500,000 in donations and grants for its preschool and after-school programs this year to cover the shortfall in federal support, far more than the $15,000 it has raised annually in the past.

And it may have to start accepting children whose parents can pay tuition for the first time.

“Now I have to think about ‘How do I make a profit?,” said Cheng, who attended the child care program when she was little. “You have to sustain the programming that has to happen for these families. You have to think about a profit in that way because when things hit the fan like this, you’ve got to figure out ‘What can I do to make ends meet?’”

A group of Democratic and independent senators and representatives are pushing to extend federal assistance for child care beyond September 30. They introduced the Child Care Stabilization Act, which would provide $16 billion each year for the next five years.

“There was a child care crisis even before the pandemic – and failing to extend these critical investments from the American Rescue Plan will push child care even further out of reach for millions of families and jeopardize our strong economic recovery,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement. “This is an urgent economic priority at every level: Child care is what allows parents to go to work, businesses to hire workers, and it’s an investment in our kids’ futures. The child care industry holds up every sector of our economy – and Congress must act now.”

Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill introduced in the House would enhance three existing tax credits – the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, the Employer-Provided Child Care Credit and the Dependent Care Assistance Program – to help make child care more affordable for families and to support employers in sharing the cost of care.

However, getting any additional funding through Congress will be difficult. House GOP hardliners are determined to cut spending in the fiscal 2024 government funding bill, making it more likely the government could shut down on October 1.

Vanessa Quarles is among the many child care providers who hope that Congress renews its support for the industry.

Quarles, who runs Bridges Transitional Preschool & Childcare in Evansville, Indiana, cannot take in more children until she can find more workers. But she can only afford to pay up to $14 an hour, which is barely a livable wage in the area, she said. Quarles raised tuition in February and stopped offering lunch, but she fears she’ll drive away parents if she asks them to shell out any more.

If she received federal funding, she would be able to provide raises and bonuses to attract more employees.

“A lot of people are having a hard time accepting the pay range of child care workers,” said Quarles, who did not receive any stabilization grants. “That’s one reason why we are not fully functioning.”

At least 17 states invested their own money into child care this year, according to a tally by Child Care Aware. These include historic investments by Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington.

Washington funneled more than $400 million this year into early learning, the largest investment in state history, according to Child Care Aware. It builds on the Fair Start for Kids Act, which state lawmakers passed in 2021. The effort increased the number of households eligible for assistance by raising income eligibility limits – a family of four earning as much as $5,600 a month in 2023 qualifies for monthly copays of only $165. It also bumped up the rates paid to providers for serving state-subsidized families.

But more needs to be done to keep providers afloat, said Ryan Pricco, director of policy and advocacy at Child Care Aware of Washington. Currently, reimbursement rates are determined by a market survey, but that reflects what parents can afford, not the true cost of care.

“Until we switch our subsidy system, and really our whole financing system, over to a cost of care model and reimburse programs that way, they’re going to continue to struggle to keep up with competitors and other low-income industries,” he said.

While the Skagit Valley Family YMCA needed the stabilization grants to bolster its child care workforce, those infusions alone are not enough to solve its financial imbalance, Snider said. Revenue from families paying full price and subsidized rates only cover the cost of staffing, not rent, food for the children and other expenses. The agency has racked up six-figure losses across its early learning centers so far this year, which is “obviously unsustainable,” Snider said.

“Early learning is not a viable proposition right now,” he continued. “Everyone calls it necessary, but no one’s willing to put the resources in yet to make it possible.”

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August 2, 2023
Goodbye child care centers, hello elderly homes: South Korea prepares for aging population | CNN

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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South Korea is getting older – and its care facilities are changing to match.

The number of child care facilities in the country has shrunk by almost a quarter in just a few years, reflecting authorities’ unsuccessful campaign to encourage couples to have more babies.

In 2017, there were more than 40,000 child care facilities, according to new government figures released Friday – by the end of last year, that number had fallen to roughly 30,900.

Meanwhile, as the population rapidly ages, the number of elderly facilities has boomed from 76,000 in 2017 to 89,643 in 2022, according to the country’s health and welfare ministry.

Elderly facilities include senior care homes, specialized hospitals, and welfare agencies that help the elderly navigate social services or protections. Meanwhile, the child care facilities listed include public services as well as private and corporate ones.

The shift illustrates a years-long problem South Korea has thus far failed to reverse. It has both one of the world’s fastest aging populations and the world’s lowest birth rate, which has been falling continuously since 2015 despite authorities offering financial incentives and housing subsidies for couples with more babies.

Experts attribute this low birth rate to various factors, including demanding work cultures, stagnating wages, rising costs of living, the financial burden of raising children, changing attitudes toward marriage and gender equality, and rising disillusionment among younger generations.

By the late 2000s, the government had begun warning that policy measures were needed to encourage families to grow. Last September, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol admitted that more than $200 billion has been spent trying to boost the population over the past 16 years.

But so far nothing has worked – and the effects have been increasingly visible in the social fabric and day-to-day life.

Many elementary, middle and high schools are closing around the country due to a lack of school-age children, according to Korean news agency Yonhap, citing the education ministry. Figures from the country’s official statistics body show the overall number of middle and high schools have remained stagnant for years, only rising by a few dozen since 2015.

In Daejeon, south of Seoul, one such abandoned school has become a popular spot for photographers and urban explorers; images show eerily empty hallways and a school yard overgrown by wild grass.

Similar crises have been seen in other East Asian countries with falling birth rates. One village in Japan went 25 years without recording a single birth. The arrival of a baby in 2016 was heralded as a miracle, with elderly well-wishers hobbling to the infant’s house to hold him.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s expanding elderly population has meant an explosion in demand for senior services, placing strain on a system scrambling to keep up.

South Korea has the highest elderly poverty rate among the OECD nations (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), with more than 40% of people over 65 years old facing “relative poverty,” defined by the OECD as having income lower than 50% of median household disposable income.

“In Korea, the pension system is still maturing, and current generations still have very low pensions,” the OECD wrote in a 2021 report.

Experts point to other factors such as global economic trends, the breakdown of old social structures that saw children looking after their parents, and insufficient government support for those struggling financially.

That means a number of homeless elderly people – part of a generation that helped rebuild the country after the Korean War – having to seek assistance from shelters and soup kitchens.

The rapid rise in elderly facilities in recent years may help alleviate some of these problems. But longer-term concerns remain about the future of Korea’s economy, as the number of young workers – who are crucial in propping up the health care and pension systems – slowly dwindle.

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July 4, 2023
Utah toddler hit in the head by a stray bullet while playing in a fenced area of day care, police say | CNN

CNN
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A 2-year-old boy is recovering at a Utah hospital after being hit in the head by a stray bullet while playing with other children outside in the fenced area of a day care, police said.

Police have identified a man who was shooting birds with a .22 caliber air rifle in an area west of the day care, which is located in Spanish Fork. The man is cooperating with investigators and will be identified only if formal charges against him are filed, according to the Spanish Fork Police Department.

On Monday, several children were playing “in the vinyl fenced area” staffed by two adults when a child “appeared to stumble and was seen bleeding from the face,” police said. The day care notified the parents who then brought their child to the hospital for treatment, police said.

“Detectives are continuing to investigate where the bullet may have been shot from and why,” Spanish Fork police said in a statement Tuesday. “It appears this was a tragic accident. Open fields are directly west of the daycare and it is believed the round may have come from that area.”

At the hospital, doctors discovered a small caliber bullet lodged in the toddler’s head and he was then transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital where he’s currently in stable condition and improving, according to a Wednesday update from police.

When the investigation is completed, the case will be handed over to Spanish Fork city prosecutors for review of any charges, police said.

“I still feel like I’m in shock,” said Lane Mugleston, who owns the day care with his wife, told CNN affiliate KSLTV. “We are absolutely surprised. We are dumbfounded that this would happen in Spanish Fork.”

Mugleston told KSLTV that at first, the staff didn’t think the child was injured by a stray bullet.

“Initially, we thought he just had tripped and hit his head,” he said.

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May 27, 2023
America funded nationwide child care during WWII. Here’s how Biden is trying to revive that effort | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
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During World War II, the federal government spent more than $1 billion in today’s dollars to help provide affordable child care for mothers who entered the workforce in droves to support the war effort.

Child care centers in more than 635 communities across the country received funds. Many stayed open late and on weekends to match workers’ factory schedules.

The World War II-era child care program was the first and only federally administered child care for all families, regardless of their income – a qualifying factor for many of today’s federal child care subsidies.

But the federal funding abruptly expired when the war ended, and now, roughly 80 years later, many American families struggle to find affordable, high-quality child care that meets their needs. The private market simply does not provide adequate child care options.

President Joe Biden, who could not get his universal pre-K proposal through Congress, is now taking a different, more limited approach. He’s requiring companies applying for certain federal grants meant to boost domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips to also have a plan to provide access to affordable child care for their workers.

The policy is designed to make sure workers as well as companies benefit from this federal investment, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan who previously served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama.

“Another way to think about it is that we really need government involved in child care,” she said.

As men went overseas to fight in World War II and the federal government’s “Rosie the Riveter” campaign encouraged women to join the workforce, it became clear that child care was sorely needed.

The money came from the National Defense Housing Act of 1940, more widely known as the Lanham Act, which was meant to fund infrastructure projects deemed critical to the war effort. The Federal Works Agency decided in 1942 that child care services fell in that category.

The FWA allowed the funds to be used for the construction and maintenance of child care facilities, to train and pay teachers, and to provide meals for communities that were directly involved in the war effort. The child care money was disbursed to centers in nearly every state.

Parents typically had to chip in, paying less than $1 a day for the child care services.

“It’s quite remarkable. The country essentially stood up an entire child care program in a matter of months,” said Chris Herbst, an associate professor at Arizona State University who published a study in 2013 on the Lanham Act child care program.

Herbst found that mothers’ paid work increased substantially following the child care subsidies. He also found that those mothers were more likely to be working 20 years later.

The program had a long-term impact on the children, too, whom Herbst found to be more likely to achieve higher levels of education and to be employed in the future, and less likely to receive other kinds of government aid throughout their lives.

Currently, the federal government subsidizes child care for low-income families through programs like the Child Care and Development Fund and Head Start programs.

But many families still struggle to afford child care, and those that can afford it have trouble finding it. After the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a huge blow to the child care sector, the federal government provided funds to help keep child care centers operating. But long-lasting, sweeping reform has repeatedly failed to pass Congress.

Last year, lawmakers passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which invests more than $200 billion over five years to help the US bring back semiconductor chip manufacturing from places like China. The law is not specifically about child care, but now the Commerce Department is requiring some companies to also provide access to child care in order to be eligible for the money.

The CHIPS law creates incentives for companies to build, expand and modernize US facilities and equipment and is already spurring private investment. Wolfspeed, a North Carolina semiconductor manufacturer that Biden visited late last month, announced a $5 billion investment to build a facility, expecting to create 1,800 jobs there.

In February, the Biden administration added the child care provision. Companies seeking certain grants over $150 million must also submit a plan to provide their facility and construction workers with access to affordable, high-quality child care, according to the government’s guidance.

“The first thing I thought was that this was ‘Lanham Part Two,’” said Kathryn Edwards, an adjunct economist at the RAND Corporation.

“We want to make sure we have workers for this critical industry, so we are going to have child care,” she said.

Like the Lanham Act, the child care program is supported by a law primarily focused on industrial policy. But the CHIPS law is putting the onus on the employer to provide the service, rather than deliver funding directly to local child care centers.

“Here’s the truth: CHIPS won’t be successful unless we expand the labor force. We can’t do that without affordable child care,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo tweeted in February.

Herbst believes it could be a few years before workers see how the child care requirement plays out and how each employer decides to structure the benefit. They may choose to provide child care on-site or offer employees child care vouchers.

“The administration has, I think, a commitment to child care. I think the question is whether this is the best way to manifest that commitment,” Herbst said.

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April 9, 2023
Four children killed in ax attack at day care center in southern Brazil | CNN

CNN
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Four children have been killed and four more injured in an ax attack at a day care center in the southern Brazilian city of Blumenau.

Those killed – three boys and a girl – were between the ages of 5 and 7, local police say.

Jorginho Mello, the governor of the state of Santa Catarina, said on Twitter that a male suspect has been arrested.

A police officer told CNN Brazil that the suspect, age 25, is understood to have jumped over a wall into the playground of the Cantinho Bom Pastor day care center, before attacking the children.

He fled after teachers came to the children’s defense, and later turned himself into police, according to the official.

Mello expressed his solidarity with the victims.

“May God comfort the hearts of all families in this time of deep sorrow,” he said.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also gave his condolences.

“There is no greater pain than that of a family that loses its children or grandchildren, even more so in an act of violence against innocent and defenseless children,” Lula wrote on Twitter.

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April 5, 2023
How frustrated parents of Los Angeles students are getting creative managing their children while school is out | CNN

CNN
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Tucked into a small art studio at a California university, Sea Krob took their 3-year-old and 7-year-old to graduate school with them because they didn’t have a daycare option this week.

They are one of the parents of the half-million students who are out of school for three days because of the Los Angeles Unified School District school worker strike.

“It’s really frustrating that the one thing that was supposed to be dependable is not,” Krob, 32, told CNN. “And it’s not because the workers are striking, but it’s because LAUSD would rather make time to find volunteers and make plans for our kids not to be in school than just meet the needs of the people that they’ve employed.”

The stakes are high for school workers, including bus drivers, custodians and other support staff represented by Service Employees International Union Local 99 asking for more equitable wages, more work hours and more staffing to provide better student services.

It is the same district that shut down for a six-day strike in 2019, when teachers went to the picket lines to fight for smaller class sizes, more staff and an increase in wages.

This strike has left parents scrambling to find childcare, many cobbling together creative solutions to keep their children on track with school, while also working their full-time jobs.

For Krob, that’s meant notifying individual professors of their situation and asking if they can bring their two children with to classes. Krob is a full-time graduate student pursuing art at California State University, Long Beach.

“My partner is out of sick days for the year already – it’s March – so I am on the whims of whatever professor I have to have my kids come with me,” they said.

For safety and liability reasons, Krob cannot take their children into the art lab where they work, so they had to forgo their lab hours this week, they said. Instead, they are getting creative with how they spend time during the strike and borrowing art supplies from a university office.

“I just stretched out a big piece of paper so that we could color on it for the three days and make art, hang out and do our best,” they said.

Krob commutes on public transit two hours each way to get to the university from their Los Angeles home. It’s been an extra challenge doing that with their two children in the pouring rain this week.

What frustrates Krob, who supports the staff on strike, is that the resources for parents are through the school system, which is shut down, they said. They wish there was more support for parents.

“I think that the people who are striking are totally within their right and they should be able to engage in a strike and parents still have resources to be able to take care of their kids, and that shouldn’t be cut off.”

Sandra Colton-Medici, an online business entrepreneur, has two children in two different situations: Only one of them gets to go to school this week.

Her 5-year-old daughter attends kindergarten at a LAUSD school, while her 3-year-old attends some classes at a private school.

“I had to wake up both of them and say, ‘One of you is going to school and the other one is not,” Colton-Medici said. “That was a little bit difficult for one to say, ‘But what do you mean I’m not going to school?’”

Her 5-year-old didn’t understand that her teachers and support staff are marching outside the school, but they aren’t in school today, she said. The 44-year-old broke it down into simple terms to explain the strike to her children.

“The teachers and the support staff there, they’re going to talk to their employer, their boss, to say we need more to take care of ourselves,” Colton-Medici said. “In order to do that, they have to take a break from school.”

In a moment of innocence, she says her oldest daughter asked, “‘So do they need money? I have money in my coin purse.’”

Her daughter’s teacher provided informational and educational packets to do at home and Colton-Medici is doing her best to act as a fill-in educator – all while running her business from home.

“If I had to grade myself with how I’m dealing with their time off from school and me balancing that thing that people call work-life balance, I would probably say I’m giving myself a 10 for effort and like a six for like completion,” she said. “I know that there’s going to be something that I’ve missed.”

Colton-Medici’s husband is working in the office, but he stayed at home Tuesday morning to care for their older daughter while she took their toddler to her school. She’s grateful she can also call on her mother if she needs backup childcare, especially since she said there was enough advance notice of the strike to make plans.

“I know by Thursday, in a few days, it might be a little overwhelming, especially since I do run my own business from home,” she said.

Colton-Medici said she feels for the support staff when she sees them ushering kids into school, walking them to the nurse or giving them a hug at the end of the day. She knows that some of those staffers work as crossing guards and have double duties.

She said it’s important to support the people on strike and make sure they are valued. She reminds people that some of these support staffers also have children in school, some of whom may be at home because their parents are on strike.

“Yes, we are pseudo inconvenienced, but how do you get inconvenienced by your own child?” Colton-Medici said. “I’m just trying to be better, trying to be more of an educator today, in addition to being able to hug my kids because I think that’s really important too.”

While the strike is inconvenient for parents in the district, Wade Armstrong says he and his wife have the flexibility to make it work with their son, Declan, being out of school.

“We’re really lucky because my wife and I, we both work at home,” Armstrong, 47, told CNN. “It’s not such a big impact in terms of we have to find child care and stuff like that, which some of our friends do have to do.”

Yet, the parents are concerned because of the learning time that’s lost for all children during the strike.

“It’s annoying and we’re sad to see the learning loss for our kids,” Armstrong said. “It’s really coming on the heels of the holidays and with spring break coming up soon, it really feels like we’ve barely even had a spring semester.”

Their son is a fourth grader, but this isn’t the first time the 9-year-old has been affected by a strike. He was in kindergarten during the 2019 LAUSD strike.

The previous strike was tougher for the Armstrongs to deal with, as neither of them were working from home and they needed child care. This time around, their son is older and more self-sufficient.

Armstrong said the materials sent home from school aren’t directly related to what’s going on in the classroom, so he’s focusing more on spending time with his son and having some of Declan’s friends over to help other parents.

While Armstrong said he’s “disappointed” that the district and the union couldn’t reach a resolution, he understands why so many staffers are on the picket lines.

Armstrong said his son talks fondly about classroom aides who help special needs students, and they make time to help the whole class with projects. Cafeteria workers are also doing admirable work, especially after feeding so many children during the pandemic, he said.

“There’s a lot of the aides and staff in our schools who really aren’t getting paid much at all and I know how essential they are from what my son tells me about his days in school,” Armstrong said. “I hope they get paid.”

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March 22, 2023
Here’s what’s in the $1.7 trillion federal spending bill | CNN Politics

CNN
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Senate leaders unveiled a $1.7 trillion year-long federal government funding bill early Tuesday morning.

The legislation includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding, according to a bill summary from Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

The sweeping package includes roughly $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies, boosts in spending for disaster aid, college access, child care, mental health and food assistance, more support for the military and veterans and additional funds for the US Capitol Police, according to Leahy’s summary and one from Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

However, the bill, which runs more than 4,000 pages, left out several measures that some lawmakers had fought to include. An expansion of the child tax credit, as well as multiple other corporate and individual tax breaks, did not make it into the final bill. Neither did legislation to allow cannabis companies to bank their cash reserves – known as the Safe Banking Act. Also, there was also no final resolution on where the new FBI headquarters will be located.

The spending bill is the product of lengthy negotiations between top congressional Democrats and Republicans. Lawmakers reached a “bipartisan, bicameral framework” last week following a dispute between the two parties over how much money should be spent on non-defense domestic priorities. They worked through the weekend to craft the legislation.

The Senate is expected to vote first to approve the deal this week and then send it to the House for approval before government funding runs out on December 23. The bill would keep the government operating through September, the end of the fiscal year.

Congress originally passed a continuing resolution on September 30 to temporarily fund the government in fiscal year 2023, which began October 1.

More aid for Ukraine: The spending bill would provide roughly $45 billion to help support Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Russia’s attack.

About $9 billion of the funding would go to Ukraine’s military to pay for a variety of things including training, weapons, logistics support and salaries. Nearly $12 billion would be used to replenish US stocks of equipment sent to Ukraine through presidential drawdown authority.

Also, it would provide $13 billion for economic support to the Ukrainian government.

Other funds would address humanitarian and infrastructure needs, as well as support European Command operations.

Emergency disaster assistance: The bill would appropriate more than $38 billion in emergency funding to help Americans in the west and southeast affected by recent natural disasters, including tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding and wildfires. It would aid farmers, provide economic development assistance for communities, repair and reconstruct federal facilities and direct money to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, among other initiatives.

Overhaul of the electoral vote counting law: A provision in the legislation aims at making it harder to overturn a certified presidential election, in a direct response to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

The changes would overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which then-President Donald Trump tried to use to overturn the 2020 election.

The legislation would clarify the vice president’s role while overseeing the certification of the electoral result to be completely ceremonial. It also would create a set of stipulations designed to make it harder for there to be any confusion over the accurate slate of electors from each state.

Higher maximum Pell grant awards: The bill would increase the maximum Pell grant award by $500 to $7,395 for the coming school year. This would be the largest boost since the 2009-2010 school year. About 7 million students, many from lower-income families, receive Pell grants every year to help them afford college.

Increased support for the military and veterans: The package would fund a 4.6% pay raise for troops and a 22.4% increase in support for Veteran Administration medical care, which provides health services for 7.3 million veterans.

It would include nearly $53 billion to address higher inflation and $2.7 billion – a 25% increase – to support critical services and housing assistance for veterans and their families.

The bill also would allocate $5 billion for the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund, which provides additional funding to implement the landmark PACT Act that expands eligibility for health care services and benefits to veterans with conditions related to toxic exposure during their service.

Beefing up nutrition assistance: The legislation would establish a permanent nationwide Summer EBT program, starting in the summer of 2024, according to Share Our Strength, an anti-hunger advocacy group. It would provide families whose children are eligible for free or reduced-price school meal with a $40 grocery benefit per child per month, indexed to inflation.

It would also change the rules governing summer meals programs in rural areas. Children would be able to take home or receive delivery of up to 10 days worth of meals, rather than have to consume the food at a specific site and time.

The bill would also help families who have had their food stamp benefits stolen since October 1 through what’s known as “SNAP skimming.” It would provide them with retroactive federal reimbursement of the funds, which criminals steal by attaching devices to point-of-sale machines or PIN pads to get card numbers and other information from electronic benefits transfer cards.

More money for child care: The legislation would provide $8 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a 30% increase in funding. The grant gives financial assistance to low-income families to afford child care.

Also, Head Start would receive nearly $12 billion, an 8.6% boost. The program helps young children from low-income families prepare for school.

Help to pay utility bills: The bill would provide $5 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Combined with the $1 billion contained in the earlier continuing resolution, this would be the largest regular appropriation for the program, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. Home heating and cooling costs – and the applications for federal aid in paying the bills – have soared this year.

Enhance retirement savings: The bill contains new retirement rules that could make it easier for Americans to accumulate retirement savings – and less costly to withdraw them. Among other things, the provisions would allow penalty-free withdrawals for some emergency expenses, let employers offer matching retirement contributions for a worker’s student loan payments and increase how much older workers may save in employer retirement plans.

More support for the environment: The package would provide an additional $576 million for the Environmental Protection Agency, bringing its funding up to $10.1 billion. It would increase support for enforcement and compliance, as well as clean air, water and toxic chemical programs, after years of flat funding.

It also would boost funding for the National Park Service by 6.4%, restoring 500 of the 3,000 staff positions lost over the past decade. This would be intended to help the agency handle substantial increases in visitation.

Plus, the legislation would provide an additional 14% in funding for wildland firefighting.

Additional funding for the US Capitol Police: The bill would provide an additional $132 million for the Capitol Police for a total of nearly $735 million. It would allow the department to hire up to 137 sworn officers and 123 support and civilian personnel, bringing the force to a projected level of 2,126 sworn officers and 567 civilians.

It would also give $2 million to provide off-campus security for lawmakers in response to evolving and growing threats.

Investments in homelessness prevention and affordable housing: The legislation would provide $3.6 billion for homeless assistance grants, a 13% increase. It would serve more than 1 million people experiencing homelessness.

The package also would funnel nearly $6.4 billion to the Community Development Block Grant formula program and related local economic and community development projects that benefit low- and moderate income areas and people, an increase of almost $1.6 billion.

Plus, it would provide $1.5 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which would lead to the construction of nearly 10,000 new rental and homebuyer units and maintain the record investment from the last fiscal year.

Increased health care funding: The package would provide more money for National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. The funds are intended to speed the development of new therapies, diagnostics and preventive measures, beef up public health activities and strengthen the nation’s biosecurity by accelerating development of medical countermeasures for pandemic threats and fortifying stockpiles and supply chains for drugs, masks and other supplies.

More resources for children’s mental health and for substance abuse: The bill would provide more funds to increase access to mental health services for children and schools. It also would invest more money to address the opioid epidemic and substance use disorder.

Tiktok ban from federal devices: The legislation would ban TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form video app, from federal government devices.

Some lawmakers have raised bipartisan concerns that China’s national security laws could force TikTok – or its parent, ByteDance – to hand over the personal data of its US users. Recently, a wave of states led by Republican governors have introduced state-level restrictions on the use of TikTok on government-owned devices.

Enhanced child tax credit: A coalition of Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates pushed hard to extend at least one provision of the enhanced child tax credit, which was in effect last year thanks to the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Their priority was to make the credit more refundable so more of the lowest-income families can qualify. Nearly 19 million kids won’t receive the full $2,000 benefit this year because their parents earn too little, according to a Tax Policy Center estimate.

New cannabis banking rules: Lawmakers considered including a provision in the spending bill that would make it easier for licensed cannabis businesses to accept credit cards – but it was left out of the legislation. Known as the Safe Banking Act, which previously passed the House, the provision would prohibit federal regulators from taking punitive measures against banks for providing services to legitimate cannabis businesses.

Even though 47 states have legalized some form of marijuana, cannabis remains illegal on the federal level. That means financial institutions providing banking services to cannabis businesses are subject to criminal prosecution – leaving many legal growers and sellers locked out of the banking system.

FBI headquarters: There was also no final resolution on where the new FBI headquarters will be located, a major point of contention as lawmakers from Maryland – namely House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer – pushed to bring the law enforcement agency into their state. In a deal worked through by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the General Services Administration would be required to conduct “separate and detailed consultations” with Maryland and Virginia representatives about potential sites in each of the states, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

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December 20, 2022