What does the average voter think of tax increases for kids? How much do they know about the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)? How has voter willingness to increase taxes changed this year? This month, we partnered with Children's Funding Accelerator (the 501c4 advocacy arm of Children's Funding Project) and FM3 Research to answer these and other questions through a new national poll and a meta-analysis of over 50 other national, state, and local polls.

We're excited to announce that we will be sharing more results in the coming weeks. For now, we want to highlight a few notable findings:

The council of the District of Columbia has approved new funding for early childhood educators in its latest budget. A new wealth tax will increase the marginal tax rates of single earners in the $250,000 to $500,000 tax bracket to 9.25%, those in the $500,000 to $1 million bracket to 9.75%, and those in the over $1 million bracket to 10.75%. This will affect the top 5% of earners and will help provide over $50 million in 2022 and over $70 million in 2023 for increased wages for child care providers. Thank you to the organizations who have worked tirelessly on this issue for years!

Voters in King County, WA renewed and increased the levy rate of their Best Starts for Kids fund to support every baby born or child raised in King County to reach adulthood happy, healthy, safe, and thriving. Current results have the proposition ahead with 62% approval. At the new rate (an increase of $0.19 per $1,000 of assessed valuation), the levy will generate an estimated $900 million over six years for organizations supporting kids in the community. To date, the program has reached almost 500,000 children and youth.

After Louisiana voters legalized sports betting last fall, the Louisiana legislature passed Senate Bill 247, officially authorizing sports betting and implementing a tax system. Under the new law, 25% of tax revenue (up to $20 million) will go to early childhood learning programs in the state. For more on this and other Louisiana wins, see here.

Many of you have asked us how to make sure ARPA dollars get to the infants, toddlers, children, and youth who need them most. Since the bill's passage in March we’ve been working to understand who will receive funding, how much, and what it can be used for.

To help answer these questions, we have created customized fact sheets for communities that participate in networks such as Strive Together, Harlem Children's Zone, and Raising Child Care Fund. We are currently developing an online, searchable tool so that there is one place to go to understand the flow of these dollars for children in your state, county, city, and school district. See here for an example of one of these fact sheets.

How are communities using the information we’ve shared about ARPA to support equitable recovery for their children? Since 2018, we have supported UP Partnership with strategic finance planning work for youth, including a fiscal map and an Alignment Task Force of more than fifty stakeholders. UP Partnership used this foundation to make recommendations for how the city, school districts, and county should spend their fiscal recovery dollars. They partnered with Children’s Funding Project and PFM Asset Management to create Leveraging American Rescue Plan Act Funds for Youth Outcomes, a guide to using federal relief funding to make transformative investments for young people.

This summer, we've been lucky enough to have a group of five interns join our team to assist with our American Rescue Plan Act work and to help build our internal operations capacity. We’ve been having such a good time that all five have signed on to continue to work with us this fall as we strive to meet the field’s need for strategic financing support!

To learn more about Des, Courtney, Esther, Sophia, and Achuth, check out their bios here.

We often share examples of child- and youth-focused fiscal maps that we have supported and want to make sure you see some of that work below. You can also find our ongoing map of fiscal maps on our website here.

Since 2012, MetrixIQ has been partnering with cities and states to plan and administer taxpayer-funded and data-driven ECE programs that provide transparency, accountability, and cost-effectiveness. With the cost of child care and the important role it plays in a healthy and equitable economy squarely in the national spotlight, MetrixIQ is excited about what the future holds for public childcare funding programs. Their solutions include implementation planning, flexible technology platforms, tuition credit scale modeling, and turnkey enrollment, eligibility, and customer service centers. To learn more about MetrixIQ and their work, visit www.metrixiq.com or: