Building Bright Futures briefs Human Services committee on early-childhood gains, data gaps and $320,000 funding request

Dr. Morgan Crossman, executive director of Building Bright Futures, told the Vermont House Committee on Human Services on Jan. 31 that the nonprofit is statutorily charged to monitor and advise on early-childhood services and is seeing measurable early gains from recent policy changes — but that persistent data and capacity shortfalls limit the state's ability to implement and assess further change.

Crossman told the committee that Building Bright Futures is "named in state and federal statute as your primary advisor on children prenatal to age 8 and their families in the state of Vermont," and described the organization's network of more than 500 partners, 12 regional councils and seven strategic-plan committees that inform its monitoring and recommendations.

Why it matters: Crossman said the group's monitoring work feeds the legislature and agencies with both quantitative indicators and family- and community-level qualitative information intended to guide policy and implementation. The presentation covered Act 76 monitoring, the prekindergarten implementation committee's recommendations, capacity and affordability trends, and a request for a $320,000 base allocation to sustain Building Bright Futures' statutory monitoring and advisory role.

Key findings and progress

- Building Bright Futures reported early, measurable changes since Act 76 took effect: an increase of roughly 170 infant slots and a reported drop in co-pays for about 550 families who no longer have a co-pay under the Child Care Financial Assistance Program (CCFAP). Crossman also said the state has seen a large jump in online CCFAP applications — about 1,500 submitted in two months — and rising enrollment.

- Vermont continues to rank highly in national comparisons on affordability through CCFAP and in access to universal prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds, Crossman said. She said those gains are reflected in higher rates of 4-year-olds meeting and exceeding expectations for math and social-emotional development on recently published Agency of Education measures.

Concerns and limits

- Crossman flagged several areas of concern: a striking rise in the number of homeless children, higher rates of emotional and behavioral health conditions among young children, persistently low third-grade reading proficiency (with larger gaps for historically marginalized students), and a workforce shortfall that affects child care, special education and related services.

- She emphasized data-system fragmentation as a central barrier. Vermont lacks a universal unique identifier that would allow longitudinal tracking of a child across health, education and social services, she said, forcing agencies and community partners to rely on point-in-time snapshots and, in some cases, manual tracking (including spreadsheets).

Act 76 monitoring and pre-K implementation

- Building Bright Futures described its statutory role in monitoring Act 76 and said its monitoring combined quantitative indicators, qualitative feedback and collaborative review with the Child Development Division and Agency of Education. Crossman said the organization convened partners, family members, national experts (including Child Trends) and state agencies to define success metrics for Act 76.

- On prekindergarten expansion, Crossman summarized the Pre-K Implementation Committee's high-level recommendations: maintain the existing entitlement for 3-year-olds while prioritizing expanded access for 4-year-olds. She noted the committee did not finalize specifics such as number of hours or the full cost of expansion. Crossman reiterated that Vermont's current universal pre-K entitlement is structured as 10 hours per week for 35 weeks a year and that expanding access would likely change dosage and infrastructure needs.

Funding, grants and pass-through work

- Crossman asked the committee to consider increasing Building Bright Futures' base state allocation by about $320,000 to support monitoring, regional council work, technical assistance, and the organization's statutory advisement role.

- She also described Building Bright Futures' role as a grant writer and pass-through for federal funds, including a Preschool Development Grant described in the presentation as a roughly $24 million, three-year federal award used to build early childhood systems capacity. Crossman clarified that Building Bright Futures acts as a pass-through and funder of local providers and that the organization uses interagency review panels and anti-bias training when awarding grants.

Committee discussion and follow-up

- Committee members asked for more detail about how social-emotional development is measured (Crossman pointed to Teaching Strategies GOLD data collected by the Agency of Education and offered to follow up), how enrollment dips across seasons should be interpreted, and whether reported slot increases reflected net gains after closures (Crossman said the 170-slot figure refers to new infant slots but that she did not have a definitive net-closure number at the hearing).

- Crossman offered to provide the committee the Act 76 monitoring report, a recorded briefing, the Pre-K Implementation Committee materials (including a table mapping quality standards across settings), and to return for more in-depth testimony as requested.

What the committee heard about next steps

- Crossman asked for the additional state funding to sustain monitoring and to support the organization's role in connecting the legislature with regional councils, family voice and data. She said Building Bright Futures will continue to work in partnership with the Child Development Division, Agency of Education, First Children's Finance, Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children and other agencies and local partners.

- Committee members scheduled follow-up hearings and testimony on related items, and Crossman agreed to supply requested analyses and to meet with members who asked for deeper briefings.

Ending

- The committee recessed after the presentation and moved on to the rest of its agenda, noting a scheduled set of oversight items and forthcoming testimony on related legislation. Crossman left committee members with the offer to return with more detailed data and to provide the committee the Act 76 monitoring materials and related reports.