Child Aid Efforts Cannot Wait

Backers of Proposition 10--the 50-cent-a-pack cigarette tax to create programs that foster early childhood development--often sound like revolutionaries. They want a “reinvention of government” to help children under 5, a group long slighted by officialdom. But talk is not action, and the appointed county commissions in charge of handing out most of the money are too often behaving like timid bureaucrats.

The election that narrowly approved Proposition 10 was 13 months ago; the state began collecting the tax last January, and the first few millions were sent to the counties in April. Still, some rural counties are just now forming their commissions, and Orange County won’t have a spending plan until February. The Los Angeles County Commission, which received its first-year allocation of $165 million two months ago, has not yet hired an executive director or issued a specific plan. The time for reinvention of government may come, but what’s required now is getting money to proven early childhood programs so voters can see some results. The general guidelines to be discussed today in a public meeting of Los Angeles’ nine-member commission are just not enough.

Proposition 10 state chairman Rob Reiner defends the Los Angeles commission, arguing that “this isn’t a 100-yard dash to see who can spend the money the fastest.” He and other Proposition 10 officials seem to think they can gain fundamental change gradually, getting an enthusiastic buy-in from every special interest in the county. History and political reality suggest otherwise: Bureaucracies stymie change, which they instinctively view as a threat. Delay is also effective ammunition for tobacco retailers, who are trying to overturn Proposition 10 with their own initiative, on the ballot next March.

The L.A. commission’s plans for spending half of the first-year allocation envision three types of programs: those that increase access to existing services (like phone help lines staffed by counselors), those that improve parenting (like nurses to visit young pregnant women at home) and those that help foster early childhood education (like improving training and credentialing for day-care workers).

The concepts are lofty, but the commission does not have the time, the staff or the expertise to oversee large programs built from scratch. The county needs to grab successful models and expand them or get smaller pilot programs launched quickly. Oakland’s Alameda County has already begun sending nurses out to counsel young pregnant women, copying a program started by Vermont nine years ago. That plan has been credited with cutting child abuse and neglect by one-third, improving kindergarten readiness and helping reduce Vermont’s teenage pregnancy rate to the nation’s lowest.

Only by boldly proposing specific programs now can counties across California build the momentum--and the public support--to realize Proposition 10’s hopeful vision.