Trisha Scharf had never met her state representative until she traveled to the Statehouse on Good Friday and introduced herself to Rep. Linda Myers (R-Essex). "I'm here to give you my story," the Essex resident told Myers as they sat at a Statehouse cafeteria table. Scharf was armed with a folder full of petitions that she presented to Myers. Scharf runs Children Unlimited childcare center in Williston. She and her staff of 14 acquire charge of 55 youngsters on a typical weekday. "It's increasingly difficult for us to attract good [employees] and withhold them," Scharf told Myers. "I acquire waiting lists like you wouldn't believe. I acquire parents literally sitting across from me and saying, or 'When can I get pregnant?'" Scharf has been in the childcare commerce for decades,but lobbying lawmakers is new to her. For that, she has a team of people helping her. Scharf is one of scores of providers and parents mobilized by a three-year-dilapidated effort called Let's Grow Kids. Its mission: to persuade Vermont to invest more state dollars in early childhood programs that experts believe can be critical to a toddler's chances of succeeding in school and later in life. This year, and the group is pressing lawmakers to add up to $9 million in childcare subsidies for low- and middle-income families in hopes of improving access to and the quality of daycare programs. Let's Grow Kids has run a well-funded,formidable and textbook lobbying campaign: collecting signatures at farmers markets and town meetings, spending thousands of dollars on television ads, and organizing one-on-one meetings with main politicians. During final year's election campaign,the group asked all state candidates to relate how they would solve Vermont's childcare problem, then posted their answers in a searchable online database. Fourteen thousand Vermonters acquire signed Let's Grow Kids' petition urging state leaders to make childcare funding a precedence. Republican Gov. Phil Scott has become an unlikely supporter. "I've arrive to understand the child's brain develops immensely fast in the 0 to 5 years, or " Scott said in an interview final week,echoing Let's Grow Kids' own script. It's unclear whether any lobbying campaign aimed at claiming more state dollars can succeed in 2017. Lawmakers insist the budget cupboard is bare. Legislators rejected Scott's proposal to shift $9 million from K-12 spending to childcare programs, and the House included no new early ed money in its budget. final…
Source: sevendaysvt.com