Rep. Gordon sees how child care budget cuts impact kids, families

State Rep walks a day in the shoes of Peoria home child care provider

Peoria – State Rep. Jehan Gordon learned what life is like as a home child care provider when she worked alongside  Antonia Cotton-- assisting with daily tasks, activities and the care of 7 children. Rep. Gordon got a firsthand look at what a proposed $50 million budget cuts will mean for Illinois' children, working parents and home child care providers like Antonia.

Antonia Cotton
Child Care Provider 

We’re counting on our elected officials to do the right thing by finding a real solution. We need to protect our children with a budget that protects families against devastating cuts.”

“Access to child care is critical for working families when times are tough,” said Antonia Cotton, who spent the morning showing Rep. Gordon a typical day in her home child care while discussing the impact of the state budget. “There are already too many children who aren’t getting the care they need. Cutting $50 million from the Child Care Assistance Program would force more families out the program and threaten parents’ ability to continue working.”

Over 170,000 children in Illinois – 3,000 in Peoria County – receive child care through the state’s Child Care Assistance Program. The state’s estimated $12.4 billion budget deficit and unprecedented payment delays have already left many families struggling to get the quality health care, education, and vital public services they count on in tough economic times. Budget cuts such as those proposed in the FY10 budget would put services for these families in greater jeopardy while doing little to solve the structural deficit.

Peoria reporter Scott Hilyard tells more of the story below. Read the whole story at the Peoria Journal-Star.

The book “Animal Boogie” won- two votes to one - among state Rep. Jehan Gordon’s pre-school constituency Monday. Zakiya Burke, who is 1 and who sat on Gordon’s lap, abstained. The other children settled on the floor in front of Gordon in the home of Antonia Cotton, their day-care provider.

“Now that’s the way you’re supposed to be at this time of day,” Gordon said and launched into reading “Animal Boogie.” and “Nice and quiet.”

Soon the children were flapping their arms like parrots and roaring like lions.

Gordon, D-Peoria, visited Cotton’s home in the 2400 block of North Peoria Avenue on Monday morning. It was one stop on her own legislative spring break fact-finding mission intended to help her decide how she might vote on a state budget that needs to close a $12 billion deficit with cuts, tax increases or some combination of the two. Child-care advocates, including Cotton, who has taken state-subsidized children into her home for 15 years, fear cuts of upward of $50 million would gut the state’s Child Care Assistance Program.

“We are in a fiscal crisis and whether tax increases or deep budget cuts are going to start to get us out of it, everything should be on the table right now,” Gordon said. “I’m here this morning to see what those cuts mean on the ground to the providers and to the people who depend on them.”

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“We’re counting on our elected officials to do the right thing by finding a real solution, one that doesn’t threaten the future of our families and the critical programs we depend on. We need to protect our children with a budget that includes a fair income tax increase and protects families against devastating cuts.”

Gordon hasn’t signed on to any budget proposal, specifically or in concept.

“I’m a freshman legislator. It would be presumptuous of me to be out front on any plan. So I’m out spending my spring break talking to people and finding out what cuts would mean to the people in the district. Only then can I begin to make up my mind.”