BY DELLA HASSELLE | Staff writer | Nov 21, 2019 - 6:01 pm

Following a months-long campaign by early childhood education advocates, the New Orleans City Council on Thursday approved a city budget that puts $3 million toward public day care, doubling the city's investment in its youngest learners.

The city's investment could have an even greater impact. Mayor Latoya Cantrell's administration anticipates being able to capture an additional match of up to $3 million more through a state program expected to be funded next year.

"I am just so proud of the city, the mayor and the council for stepping up and being really a model for our state and our country," Libbie Sonnier-Netto, the executive director of Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, said in a statement after the budget was approved.

The money will go to a pilot program called City Seats, which provides free childcare to families at or near the poverty line. Priority is given to kids age 2 and under who are by definition homeless, disabled or in foster care.

Jen Roberts, the executive director of the New Orleans Early Education Network (NOEEN), which oversees City Seats and local state-funded programs, said $3 million will fund at least 150 spots next year, plus support services advocates say help address barriers to education.

Those resources include mental health consultation, professional development for teachers and a program evaluation.

Although advocates were celebrating Thursday, the influx of money is still to leave a huge gap. Data collected by NOEEN and the Louisiana Department of Education shows there are 9,000 local children under age 4 who would likely qualify for publicly funded early education but don’t have access because of lack of funding.

If the state match is funded as expected, the number of seats available to families would increase. Officials should know for sure by 2020.

The state match would come from an early education trust established by Louisiana Legislature in 2017. It was funded in June when lawmakers passed another measure that provided a portion of Harrah's proceeds as part of the casino's contract extension.

If the revenue Harrah's pays to the state is greater than $60 million a year, a benchmark that's happened every year for a decade except in 2017, $3.6 million is set aside for early education.

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The trust fund is expected to start accumulating money next year, in time for City Seats to start a new school year. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education still must decide how to distribute the funds to municipalities.

In the meantime, advocates -- including members of New Orleans City Council and the New Orleans Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a group of 100 nonprofits -- have bemoaned that child care isn't affordable for many local residents.

On average, private child care in Louisiana costs $149 a week, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In New Orleans, prices can go to nearly $260 a week.

And, as State Superintendent John White underscored in a statement, while laws passed by Louisiana Legislature have bettered the quality of many early education centers, there has also long been a dearth of state or federally-funded spots in programs for low-income families.

"As the quality of our early learning centers has climbed, the number of working families able to access them has dwindled. This need is particularly strong among the families of infants, toddlers, and three-year olds, for whom minimal services are available," White said. "New Orleans has been a pioneer in helping narrow this access gap."

For years, as advocates have encouraged the city to invest its capital commitment toward solving the problem, the investment has slowly increased.

In 2017, New Orleans became the first municipality in the state to invest its own money — $750,000 — for care for kids 2 and younger. That year, the City Seats pilot program opened 50 spots to families in need.

That amount doubled last year, and the number of seats increased to 112. This year, the main focus is on budgeting for the wraparound services that had previously been funded through one-off donations.

”We are grateful for the bold leadership of our City Council and Mayor to move from zero public ECE funds to three million in only three budget cycles," said Michael Williamson, CEO of United Way of Southeast Louisiana, a member of the early education campaign. "This investment in our children is a win for our city.”

The City Council's vote comes just hours after Gov. John Bel Edwards, who won reelection in a tightly-contested race Saturday, said increasing access to day care and preschool statewide was at the top of his agenda.

"Early childhood will be my highest priority for new education investments in the second term," he said.