Working with Governor McKee, our champions in the General Assembly, and dedicated advocates like you we helped to secure the following wins for Rhode Island babies, young children, and families:
- Early Intervention programs will receive 100% of the recommended Medicaid rate increase to serve infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities which will hopefully eliminate the waiting list. This rate increase will also trigger rate increases for providers serving children enrolled in Early Intervention who have commercial insurance.
- First Connections newborn home visiting programs will receive 100% of the recommended Medicaid rate increase, the first permanent rate increase in 22 years.
- The Child Care Assistance Program will be expanded to help more families starting in January 2025, raising the household income limit to 261% of the federal poverty level ($67,390 for a family of three in 2024), the highest level in state history. This policy will enable a two-parent family with one child where both parents are working full-time and earning $16/hour to qualify for child care assistance.
- Rates paid to child care centers serving children in the Child Care Assistance Program will be raised by 5% in July 2024, the first increase since 2022. This rate increase is comparable to rate increases family child care providers have received through collective bargaining.
- The Child Care for Child Care Educators pilot program will be continued for one more year (through July 2025). This program is designed to help recruit and retain frontline child care educators statewide by covering the cost of child care for the children of staff with household incomes under 300% of the federal poverty level ($77,460 for a family of three in 2024).
- The RI Pre-K program will receive $7.1 million in new general revenue which has already been allocated to strengthen and expand access to high-quality Pre-K. Some of these new state funds will be braided with Head Start funding to help improve staff wages and prevent classroom closures and some of the funding will support existing high-quality child care classrooms for three- and four-year olds that are being converted to RI Pre-K classrooms.
- Cash assistance payments to families participating in the RI Works program will be raised by 20% effective July 2024. Children will no longer be subject to losing benefits due to full family sanction and the earned income disregard for families will be raised from $300 to $525.
- Two more weeks will be added to the state’s paid family leave program (Temporary Caregivers Insurance) over the next two calendar years. Workers caring for a new baby, adopted, or foster child or caring for a seriously ill family member will be eligible for 7 weeks of paid leave starting January 2025 and 8 weeks starting January 2026. The dependent allowance will be increased from $10 per dependent per week to $20 per dependent per week.
- The MomsPRN and PediPRN programs will continue through FY25 with an $850,000 allocation from the existing child and adult immunization accounts at the Department of Health. These Psychiatric Resource Network (PRN) programs provide real-time clinical consultation so that primary health care providers can meet the mental health needs of pregnant, postpartum, and pediatric patients.
- The RI Early Care and Education Workforce Data Act passed both the House and the Senate and will establish a state early care and education workforce registry that meets the guidelines of the National Workforce Registry Alliance and will require an annual state report on the status of educators who work directly with children in licensed child care and early learning centers and family child care homes including demographics, education levels, and turnover.
While we are pleased to see this progress, much more work is still needed to ensure that ALL Rhode Island babies, kids, and families regardless of zip code, race, ethnicity, or family income, get off to the right start!
