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City staff outline $1 million early‑childhood trust fund, 60 subsidized slots and priorities for infants and family‑home providers
Summary
The city’s Early Childhood Care and Education Trust Fund will use $1 million to subsidize roughly 60 slots, prioritize infants and toddlers, and route administration through Thrive Birth to 5; staff emphasized cost‑of‑quality figures and asked for data on eligible populations and provider capacity.
Eva Cohen, senior policy adviser leading the Office of Children and Families, and staff from Thrive Birth to 5 briefed the committee on the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Trust Fund. The trust fund received $1 million in fiscal year 2025 funding to expand subsidized early‑care slots in community settings.
Cohen said the city chose Thrive Birth to 5 as the trust fund administrator to leverage the organization’s existing mixed‑delivery administration and quality‑monitoring capacity. The contract allows up to 10% of grant funds for administrative costs to support outreach and provider technical assistance.
Staff explained the trust fund’s near‑term focus: infants and toddlers, family‑home providers (family day homes), therapeutic programs for children who experienced trauma, and cost‑of‑quality reimbursements to better cover true operating costs. Using a state cost model, staff cited annual program operating cost estimates of about $23,196 per infant and $14,300 per preschooler; the trust fund’s initial $1 million purchase equated to roughly 60 subsidized slots under the chosen allocations.
Cohen presented slot and program tallies the city is tracking: 767 children under age 5 in the Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP), about 46 in Early Head Start, 507 in Head Start, 276 in mixed‑delivery slots, and 622 in the Virginia Preschool Initiative. She and councilmembers discussed declining kindergarten enrollment trends and the need to reconcile enrollment and eligibility data across Richmond Public Schools, Richmond DSS and other partners.
Committee members asked staff to pull additional penetration data — for example, how many children attached to local TANF cases are age 0–5, how many active DSS vouchers exist year‑to‑date, and how RPS manages and allocates Head Start and VPI slots. Cohen said those data requests will be treated as follow‑ups and that the trust fund includes an annual needs assessment in Thrive’s contract to identify access gaps and root causes.
Cohen acknowledged the trust fund produced a small number of slots relative to city need but said the choice favored immediate placement over longer‑term capacity investments: “We wanted to prioritize getting slots into community provider settings as quickly as possible so we could serve kids with need right away,” she said.
Ending: Staff said they will return with refined cost‑of‑quality figures, penetration analysis requested by council members, and additional dashboard metrics to track eligible populations, program fills and geographic access.
