Statement of Olivia Golden
Administration for Children and Families
Department of Health and Human Services
before the
Subcommittee on the Department of Labor, Health, and Human Services,
Education, and Related Agencies Committee on Appropriations
U.S. House of Representatives
March 5, 1998

 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to present the President's budget request for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) for FY 1999. I am accompanied by Dennis Williams, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget for the Department. President Clinton has presented to Congress the first balanced budget in 30 years. It addresses the concerns of Americans, serves their interests, and creates opportunity. This budget keeps faith with the longstanding commitments of this Department. Even in this time of limited resources, the budget includes significant increases for several of our programs. In keeping with this Administration's policy to increase support for programs that promote economic security and independence and healthy development for our children, while working toward more efficient government, our budget is targeted in areas that have produced significant payoffs. The FY 1999 budget for the Administration for Children and Families is $40 billion, of which $21 billion is being requested in new budget authority. The remaining $19 billion is available through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Entitlement programs represent approximately $31 billion of our $40 billion budget.

While the Administration for Children and Families funds a wide range of programs, including Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Community Services, programs for persons with developmental disabilities, Native Americans, and refugees, over 65 percent of ACF's $8.7 billion discretionary spending supports programs serving young children through the Child Care and Development Block Grant and the Head Start program. We are seeking increases for these two programs, as well as, Adoption Incentives and Adoption Opportunities, programs for persons with developmental disabilities, and Violent Crime Reduction programs. I would like to highlight a few of our key programmatic initiatives in these areas.

Child Care Initiative

The Clinton Administration has been committed to making work pay through a variety of supports for working families, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, Family and Medical Leave, and child health insurance. In this year's budget proposal, the President is making the next installment on his commitment to working families with his Child Care Initiative. As the President said in his State of the union Address, "No American family should ever have to choose between the job they need and the child they love." This initiative supports parents' choices, so that they will be able to find and afford quality child care. At the White House Conference on Child Care in October, we heard from people from all walks of life about the importance of high quality child care choices for parents who work. The experience of these parents, providers, health professionals, and others echoes the message that recent brain research has taught us: For children in child care, the quality of that care has a tremendous impact on their development and readiness to learn.

In support of this initiative, we are requesting approximately $2 billion in increases for child care in FY 1999. Of this amount, $1.8 billion is entitlement funding to expand child care subsidies to reach a million additional children by 2003 and to create the Early Learning Fund. This Fund will enable States to provide challenge grants to communities to protect the health and safety of the youngest and most vulnerable children in child care and promote their early learning and development.

In addition, the Administration requests $180 million in discretionary funds for several programs targeted toward improving the quality of care. The funds will support a National Child Care Provider Scholarship Fund to improve provider training and reduce turnover, a Standards Enforcement Fund to allow States to enforce their own health and safety standards by hiring more inspectors and increasing the number of licensing visits to child care programs, and a Research and Evaluation Fund to provide research into child care issues for low-income working families, consumer education and to establish a National hotline to link families with resources.

Head Start

The Head Start program fosters the development of young children from low-income families and enables them to function at their highest potential. There is an increasing body of evidence which supports the advantages which accrue to disadvantaged children and families who attend Head Start. Studies demonstrate that Head Start programs produce immediate gains across a diverse range of areas such as cognitive functioning, academic readiness and achievement, self-esteem, social behavior and physical health. Studies also show that Head Start children have better high school attendance rates, are less frequently retained in grade and have less need for special education.

Because Head Start makes a difference, we are requesting $4.7 billion for FY 1999, a $305 million increase. This level will support 30,000 to 36,000 additional infants, toddlers, children and their families; moving toward the President's goal of providing services to 1 million children by the year 2002. Because early investment in children gives them the best chance of continued success, we will double the number of Early Head Start children served to a total of nearly 80,000 infants and toddlers by 2002. Our 1999 request will support nearly 50,000 infants and toddlers, an increase of 10,000 over the 1998 enrollment. We have made dramatic progress toward developing an outcome-oriented accountability system for Head Start which can be used to determine the quality and effectiveness of Head Start programs. The first results give us reason for encouragement: the quality of most classrooms is good -- and perhaps most important, program quality, including small class sizes, good adult to child ratios, and richer teacher-child interactions is related to children's outcomes.

Child Welfare and Child Protection

This budget reflects a strong Administration commitment to the safety, permanent placement, and well- being of children who have been abused or neglected or are in danger of abuse or neglect. Each year, millions of children are the subject of a report of abuse or neglect. About 40% of these reports are substantiated, affecting nearly 1 million children a year. During 1995, over 450,000 children were in foster care, an increase of almost 42% since 1988. While many of these children will return home, nearly 100,000 will not. These are our most vulnerable children.

In response to these staggering numbers, Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. We are pleased that this budget includes increases of $20 million in the Adoption Incentive Program and $4 million in the Adoption Opportunities Program to implement this Act. Our goal is to double the number of children who are adopted from the foster care system or placed in other permanent settings from 27,000 in 1996 to 54,000 in 2002.

Programs to Reduce Violent Crime

The FY 1999 request includes $105 million to reduce the violence that threatens all of us and cuts short too many lives. In addition to the $15 million requested for the Education and Prevention Grants to Reduce Sexual Abuse of Runaway, Homeless and Street Youth, these funds include $88.8 million for the Family Violence Program; and $1.2 million to continue the activities of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Over 160,000 calls have been answered since the hotline became operational in 1996. Programs for Persons with Developmental Disabilities We are requesting a $5 million increase to implement the program authorized under the Families of Children with Disabilities Support Act. This demonstration authority offers States a small but crucial set of resources to assist these families achieve self-sufficiency by addressing such problems as inadequate child care options, missed job training or job opportunities and the loss of medical assistance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say the agency's planning documents required under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and its budget are being displayed together for the first time. The Administration for Children and Families is committed to the achievement of results, to the measurement of results, and to jointly working with its partners. The priorities reflected in the Administration for Children and Families' FY 1999 budget support the strategic goals which have been developed in our performance plan and are consistent with the HHS Strategic Plan transmitted to Congress on September 30, 1997. Targets in the performance plan could change based upon final Congressional appropriations action. We look forward to Congress' feedback on the usefulness of our plan, as well as to working with Congress on achieving the goals laid out in our plan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to answer any questions you and the committee may have at this time.