Michigan Department of Human Services Director Ismael Ahmed was recently interviewed about proposed budget cuts to the Michigan Department of Human Services by the Michigan Legislature. Those budget cuts would virtually eliminate subsidized day care for poor working families and might result in the elimination of the Early Childhood Investment Corp., which runs early childhood Great Start program.
Ahmed said that “a huge percentage” of the proposed budget cuts were focused on the DHS, amounting to “almost 20 percent of our budget.”
“These cuts are too devastating, too costly to the people we serve,” Ahmed said. Ahmed said the cuts would not just affect poor people but also middle class people who are losing jobs and depending on the state’s safety net.
Regarding day care, Ahmed said his understanding is that the budget cuts would remove money for daycare that comes from the general fund, which in turn would mean a loss of federal funds, and so there would be no subsidized daycare program for low-income people
“We can’t go back to a period in which children were left at home so parents could work, or watched by 10-year-old siblings,” Ahmed said. “The safety of our children is paramount, and we need to act on that.”
Ahmed also expressed concerns about cuts to Early Childhood Investment Corp. funding. He said the ECIC “assures that children are healthy and prepared to go to school.”
“The dismantling of that program — and that’s what this cut means — would mean that our children will go to school unprepared, unhealthy and un-assessed. We can’t afford that here in Michigan.”
See the entire interview below.
Related story from the Detroit News:
Teachers: Preschool cuts will hurt kids
1 in 3 kindergartners arrives unprepared, Mich. survey finds
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