Four child care bills will be heard in the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, March 4th:
- HB 933 the Maryland Child Care Working Families Act
- HB 993 Child Care Capital Support Revolving Loan Fund – Established
- HB 995 Early Childhood Development – Child Care Scholarship Program – Alterations
- HB 1100 Child Care Providers and Employees – Bonuses
Please explore each bill in this blog post. What would it mean to you if these bills were signed into law? What would it mean to other early childhood educators that you know, in centers and family child care homes? What would it mean to the families counting on you?
Are you ready to tell the Delegates on the Ways and Means Committee? Let’s do it together!
How do we do this?
Our state legislators need to hear from us. We appreciate that the General Assembly set up a way for any of us to submit written testimony online, without having to go to the House office building in Annapolis!
Written testimony gets submitted using your My GA account (get the scoop on this on our blog).
Mark your calendar: the time to submit testimony online for the March 4th hearing is between 8 AM and 3 PM on Wednesday, March 2.
Your testimony is your story
Your testimony is meant to share your experiences and point of view.
Find out more about these bills and consider how, if passed, they’d make a difference in our community.
Your testimony is a way to tell state legislators what you want them to understand and what you want them to do. It is your story, along with the action step you want them to take.
- Click here (link to Word doc of sample) to open this Word document and then save it as a file on your own computer.
- Add your name and contact information.
- Make any other edits you wish!
The testimony sample is set up to address all four bills. You may decide that you want to highlight one or some but not all four of them, based on your experience and expertise. This is fine! You can change this sample around. The sample lists the four bills at the top – just make sure that your version names the ones you address in your testimony. The hearing includes four pieces of legislation we are interested in. If your testimony is going to be about more than one of the bills, it needs to be submitted in My GA for *each* bill you are supporting. It is fine if it is the same document.
Two tips we learned last year about submitting written testimony using My GA:
- your testimony document needs to be saved as a PDF after you’ve typed it and you’re all finished; and
- submitting testimony works if you open an internet browser in Chrome or Firefox but did not work for us using Internet Explorer.
Optional: Advocacy “Office Hours” Wednesday, March 2
Want to work on your testimony together, submit your testimony together to the House, talk through the legislation, or celebrate teamwork advocacy?
Join the Resource Center Team on Zoom on Wednesday, March 2 between 12:00 and 1:30 PM: https://bit.ly/3HmzZ6P
No need to register or sign up. Just pop by if there’s anything we can do to help or to let us know you’ve submitted testimony! We love a virtual high-five.
If you have questions or ideas, please contact Laura at lterrell@pgcrc.org
On March 4th, we can virtually “march forth” for child care when the Ways and Means Committee meets! Let’s do it!
