It is in Nebraska’s best interest to ensure that our children enter kindergarten with the experience they need to become successful students. A child’s first five years are critically important for healthy brain and social/emotional development, and First Five Nebraska is committed to supporting legislation that helps children get the start they need to grow into confident, capable, productive citizens.
We have developed a comprehensive list of all legislation impacting Nebraska children ages 0-8 and their families, and have further identified the following priority bills. The status of each bill is updated daily on our website to keep you up-to-date on legislative developments as they happen.
LB691: Increase the Nebraska child and dependent care tax
LB691 provides certain Nebraska families an increased state tax credit for child care expenses. The amount of the state tax credit is tied to the federal credit for child care expenses. The bill increases the state tax credit from 25 percent of the federal credit allowed, to 28 percent of the federal credit allowed. This increase only applies to individuals reporting federal adjusted gross incomes greater than $29,000. Increasing the state tax credit will help ease the cost of high-quality child care for Nebraska's working families.
LB729: Expand learning opportunities for school-age youth
This bill creates a 23-member task force to review existing state and local expanded learning programs and policies. Expanded learning opportunities include a broad range of programs that typically occur outside of the traditional school day or school year. The task force will be charged with working with various public and private entities to identify expanded learning opportunity model approaches for the legislature and the Nebraska Department of Education. These programs can provide safe, enriching environments in the hours before and after school for children to continue to learn and grow.
LB864: Increase funding for the early childhood preschool grant programs
LB864 recognizes the importance of early childhood education investments by increasing lottery funding for early childhood preschool grant programs by $500,000 for each of the next two fiscal years. These investments bring the total lottery funding allocation for fiscal year 2014-15 to $2,350,000, and the total lottery funding allocation for fiscal year 2015-16 to $2,450,000. Continued support for the early childhood preschool grant programs allows Nebraska to keep reaching our at-risk youth in the years that matter most.
LB944: Build the foundation for school success, good life choices and healthy relationships
LB 944 would provide funding to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education to expand an existing program that provides helpful training for parents, child care providers (home-based, church-based, non-profit and for-profit), and elementary school teachers who work with children birth to age 8 with challenging behaviors. The skills necessary to succeed in school, make good life choices, and build healthy relationships are developed in early childhood. Proper development of these skills like self-control, confidence and the capacity to communicate requires child care providers, teachers and parents to know how to cultivate positive behaviors and address challenging behaviors as they occur.
LB955: Establish a Family Medical Leave Fund
LB955 establishes a family medical leave fund that certain employees may contribute to through payroll deductions. The fund will allow families to save money for future paid time off for the birth or adoption of a child, or other serious family health issues. The family medical leave fund will provide families an additional way to ensure they have time and resources to care for their children at times of critical need, including those important first weeks with newborns.
LB967: Protect current lottery allocations for early childhood
Allows lottery allocations to the Early Childhood Education Endowment Cash Fund (Sixpence), the Nebraska Department of Education early childhood preschool grant program and the School District Reorganization Fund to remain in place after June 30, 2016. Stable funding will allow school districts to provide robust, high-quality early childhood opportunities that close the achievement gap for children at risk.
LB984: Encourage schools to invest in early childhood
Permits any lottery funds committed to the early childhood education preschool grant program and the Early Childhood Education Endowment Cash Fund (Sixpence) to remain in place past June 30, 2016. The bill also makes a separate, one-time appropriation of $4.6 million to the early childhood preschool grant program for FY 2014-15. This additional funding is significant because it will allow more school districts to start or expand high-quality early childhood education opportunities in their communities.
LB992: Measure results and providing accountability for future early childhood investments
LB992 creates an Early Childhood Data Governing Body to develop and sustain a unified early childhood data system. The goal of the system is to provide accountability for and guide future investments in early childhood programs serving children ages 0-8. The data system will fully integrate data from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Nebraska Department of Education to improve coordination and streamlining of services. The bill also directs the Data Governing Body to develop a plan to close certain data collection gaps. Developing better data systems is critical to evaluating the quality and effectiveness of early childhood investments.
LB1050: Improve childcare health and safety inspections
While all licensed Nebraska childcare providers must be inspected regularly, current law allows for Family Child Care Home I providers to obtain licenses before undergoing basic health and safety inspections. Specifically, current law gives the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services 60 days to complete the inspection after the license is granted. While a significant majority of providers pass these inspections without incident, a small number of licenses have been granted to homes with unsafe and unsanitary conditions that are not easily remedied. Will protect children and provide families the assurance that all licensed childcare providers meet basic health and safety requirements from day one, by requiring pre-licensure inspections for Family Child Care Home I providers.
