Great START Waiting List Imposed

For lack of funding, the Child Care Bureau of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) has imposed a waiting list for new applicants seeking professional development wage supplements under the Great START (Strategy to Attract and Retain Teachers) program. The shutdown in approving new applications comes just as more child care providers are trying to increase their staff’s professional credentials so that they can participate in the new Preschool for All initiative.

Created in 2000 in response to research showing that child care center staff and home-based providers are poorly paid and have a high turnover rate, Great START encourages increased professional preparation and retention of child care personnel. It provides state-funded wage supplements to low-paid child care staff who attain educational credentials exceeding state licensing requirements. This is the first time IDHS has imposed a waiting list on the program.

The Great START program provides wage supplements to child care professionals who are employed in a full-day or full-year program, earn no more than $15 an hour (equivalent to $30,000 annually if employed full-time), have worked for the same employer for at least one year, are employed in a child care center or home licensed by the Department of Children and Family Services, and attain specified educational credentials.  

Over 5,000 people currently receive a Great START wage supplement, which is paid twice a year and ranges from $150 to $1,950. The ten different levels on the wage supplement scale correspond to educational attainment.

The Great START program has worked in tandem with another program, the TEACH (Teacher Education and Compensation Helps) Early Childhood Project, which defrays educational costs for child care professionals.

Persons who apply for Great START funding after the first of this month will be on a waiting list to receive wage supplements as funding becomes available. The new policy does not affect current recipients as long as they continue to meet program requirements.

Earlier this year, Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced, with much fanfare, the Preschool for All initiative, with the goal of making preschool available to all 3- and 4-year-olds in Illinois. Due to space constraints in public schools, experts agree that the governor’s goal is reachable only by increasing the availability of early education programs in community child care settings. Shutting down Great START intake flies in the face of that goal.

A relatively small commitment of $1 million in additional funding would have kept Great START intake open . Great START overspent its $7 million budget by $0.7–0.8 million in the fiscal year that just ended.

For more information about waiting list policies, click on Great START at www.ilchildcare.org, or call a Great START counselor at 866.697.8278. For comments and questions about this article, contact Dan Lesser, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.

Poverty Action Report
July 2006