MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

3925

A Senate Joint Resolution concerning

Day Care for Children

FOR the purpose of requesting the State Department of
Employment and Social Services to develop and
recommend a statewide plan for adequate day care for
children.

WHEREAS, As many as 25,000 children in the State are
in need of and eligible for public pre—school day care,
while the State is now funding care for only 4,600
children; and

WHEREAS, The State now provides no funding for the
group care of school—aged 6—12—year—old children when
school is not in session and when their parents are
working, while such lack of supervision is directly
related to juvenile truancy, delinquency, and crime; and

WHEREAS, The Department of Employment and Social
Services has established a moratorium on new
State—operated day care centers, while the economic
conditions of inner city neighborhoods, where 60 percent
of Baltimore's unmet day care demand among low—income
children is found, preclude the expansion of alternative
forms of subsidized group day care; and

WHEREAS, The current rates the State is now using to
purchase day care from family day care mothers are so
unrealistically low as to economically strain those
mothers from whom care is now purchased and to discourage
additional mothers from providing purchased care; and

WHEREAS, Title XX of the Social Security Act has
relaxed federally required standards for day care
service; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, That
the State Department of Employment and Social Services is
requested to develop a statewide plan for adequate day
care for children. In developing the plan, the
Department shall consider the following elements:

(1)    Sufficient day care to meet the needs of those
3—5—year—old children who are eligible for such service
under Title IV A of the Federal Social Security Act;

(2)    Day care for Title IV A eligible school—aged
children 6—12 years of age;

(3)    Additional State-operated day care centers
especially in cases where alternative forms of expanded
group care are unfeasible;