Infrastructure Support
1: Ensure federal child care relief funds reach individual early care and education staff in the form of direct cash payments. 2: Ensure health coverage and guaranteed paid leave of at least two weeks for all staff working in regulated early care and education programs. 3: Adjust eligibility requirements for public safety net programs utilized by early childhood personnel until the period when all state ARPA funds related to child care are liquidated. 4: Prioritize equitable distribution of funding to programs located in communities with the most need, which have been impacted most acutely by this pandemic. 5: Improve systems administration and technical assistance to facilitate accessible, simple application processes. 6: Establish essential, yet simple data collection protocols to examine the utilization and impact of ARPA funding in order to inform future policies and resource allocation. 7: Prohibit the use of quality ratings as a determining factor for eligibility to receive ARPA funds or to condition levels of payment.