While there was a fair amount of media coverage about the reduction in state child care assistance announced last week, there was less attention to the single largest category of that $51 million budget cut: the loss of financial assistance for low-income parents.

During these sunny summer days, next year’s legislative session may seem far off. But actually, our work to protect kids through the 2011 legislative session starts now.

With a looming gap of $3 billion between Washington’s expected revenue and the needs of the state, Governor Gregoire has launched a planning process for the 2011-2013 budget.

She has asked every state department to answer seven questions about each spending item and make a recommendation for how to cut spending. Question number one: “Is this an essential service?”

The Children’s Alliance wants to make sure that Washington’s values are not lost in the budget planning process. And we’re not alone. Children’s Alliance executive director, Paola Maranan, and Ingrid McDonald, advocacy director for AARP Washington, teamed up in this Seattle Times op-ed to send lawmakers a message: Keep Washington’s values at the core of the budget debate.

Our Federal Government handles many pressing issues – from foreign affairs to the environment to the economy. So where do kids fit into the picture? And what does that Washington have to do with what happens in Washington state?

The answer is a lot, which is why we sent our federal staffer to Washington D.C. last week to advocate for kids. What happens in the halls of Congress helps shape what programs are and aren’t funded in our state.

Working Connections subsidies make child care affordable for thousands of low-income families across Washington. But many families have to reapply several times a year to keep their kids enrolled – penalizing parents for slight changes in income that don’t make them ineligible, for losing a job, or for changing child care providers.

The result: Parents who are still eligible get mistakenly kicked off the system, and their children lose access to child care for weeks or months – disrupting their mom’s or dad’s ability to work.

The Department of Early Learning is making a final call for public comments on a statewide plan that will be a roadmap for developing a comprehensive, high-quality early learning system for Washington state.

This Friday is the cutoff.

After that, the Department of Early Learning (DEL), the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), and Thrive by Five Washington (the state’s public-private early learning partnership) will spend the next few months considering the public’s comments before releasing a final plan in the fall.

There’s a well-funded threat to the common-sense revenue Washington lawmakers raised this year rather than relying solely on budget cuts. That revenue protected many vital services that support children, families and seniors; health care, education and the environment; labor, low-income people and communities of color.

Most other states also took a balanced approach by approving taxes on goods like candy, while the push to tax soda is gaining momentum across the country.

The Children’s Alliance played a leading role in the successful push for taxing candy and soda. Now a potential ballot measure jeopardizes more than $200 million of the revenue that we and other advocates fought so hard to raise. We’re urging people to decline to sign Initiative 1107. 

As The News Tribune reported, Gov. Chris Gregoire has said repealing these taxes could force cuts to services like all-day kindergarten, preschool for 3-year-olds and maternity care for low-income moms.

Late last week, a court ruling against a challenge to I-1107’s ballot title cleared the way for signature-gathering to begin. The deep-pocketed beverage industry immediately poured more than $1 million into the effort to collect about 241,000 signatures by July 2.

You’ve probably seen signature gatherers with I-1107 petitions outside grocery stores and big-box retailers. We’re already hearing reports that signature gatherers are misleading people by claiming this initiative would repeal taxes on “food and beverages.”

Free speech is one thing. Misleading the public is another.

Do not let proponents of this initiative twist the truth about the very modest and targeted taxes our lawmakers thoughtfully debated before enacting.

There’s a decline-to-sign hotline you can call, e-mail or text to report any misleading information you hear from signature gatherers out there: 1-888-207-7307, WA.DeclinetoSign@gmail.com, 425-998-STOP (7867).

Read more about the decline-to-sign effort in the action alert we sent our 10,000-plus members today and on the 2010 elections endorsements page of our website.

Advocates have been on pins and needles waiting for a key U.S. House committee to release its plan for reauthorizing the federal Child Nutrition Act. It finally surfaced yesterday, and though there’s no official word on a cost estimate, it’s expected to invest $8 billion over 10 years – almost twice as much as the $4.5 billion a Senate committee proposed in March.

Crucial funding that’s needed to sustain Washington’s Apple Health for Kids program and other vital health care services in states all over the country is in serious jeopardy.

Though Washington has made great progress toward providing all kids with health coverage, an estimated 78,000 remain uninsured, and it’s a problem that plagues American Indian children at much higher rates than any other group.