GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 1989

H	1 

HOUSE BILL 171

Short Title:  Day Care Funds.	(Public)
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Sponsors: Representatives Easterling; Stamey, Kennedy, Wiser, and S. Thompson.
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Referred to:  Human Resources.
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February 7, 1989

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO ELIMINATE DAY CARE WAITING LISTS.
Whereas, there is a crisis in child care programs that support employment for low income parents in North Carolina; and
Whereas, approximately ten thousand children of low income parents across North Carolina remain on county departments of social services' waiting lists because of lack of funds to purchase essential day care for them; and
Whereas, the average cost to the State for a subsidized child in day care is two thousand one hundred dollars ($2,100) per year; and
Whereas, the welfare cost to the State of keeping low income parents who want to work but who cannot because they cannot find affordable day care is far greater than the cost of providing day care; and
Whereas, this cost cannot be reduced to dollars alone, as the children of low income parents who cannot afford to work because they cannot afford day care remain themselves in poverty and create new generations of citizens who cannot work;  Now, therefore,
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Human Resources, the sum of twenty-one million dollars ($21,000,000) for the 1989-90 fiscal year and the sum of twenty-one million dollars ($21,000,000) for the 1990-91 fiscal year, to be used for the purchase of day care slots for children determined by the county departments of social services to be eligible to receive day care.  Funds shall be distributed by the Day Care Section, Division of Facility Services, Department of Human Resources, to the county departments of social services according to the formula adopted by the General Assembly in 1985 in Section 94 of Chapter 479 of the 1985 Session Laws.  Funds received by county departments of social services under this act may be used only to purchase day care slots for eligible children and may not be used for any other purpose.
Sec. 2.  This act shall become effective July 1, 1989.