Levar Stoney, Mayor (Richmond, VA)

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Mayor’s Alliance to End Childhood Hunger

NewDEAL Leader Richmond, VA Mayor Levar Stoney is chairing the new Mayors Alliance to End Childhood Hunger, launched this week, with more than 50 other mayors already signed on, including 14 other NewDEALers. The Alliance seeks individual and collective leadership from cities nationwide to take meaningful action against childhood hunger, including publicly speaking on hunger issues, expansion of SNAP and P-EBT opportunities, and providing better financial assistance for school meals. Read more about the Alliance, or check out their one-pager on actions mayors can take.

Derek Green, Councilmember (Philadelphia, PA)

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Public Banking Boosts Disadvantaged Businesses

In Philadelphia, NewDEAL Leader Councilmember Derek Green has been working for years on an innovative proposal to establish a city-run public bank in his city. In December, his proposal to establish the Philadelphia Public Finance Authority finally won committee approval and is set to be brought before the full Council early this year. If approved, the bank would elevate women and minority-owned businesses by making it easier for them to secure a loan and reducing racial disparities in business ownership. Read more about Councilmember Green’s proposal here, which took finalist honors in last year’s NewDEAL Ideas Challenge.

Loranne Ausley, Senator (Tallahassee, FL)

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‘Foster Children’s Bill of Rights’ in Florida

This week, a Florida Senate subcommittee unanimously passed NewDEALer Senator Loranne Ausley’s bipartisan legislation to codify a bill of rights for children in the state’s foster care system. The legislation compiles the rights of children in the foster care system, ensuring priority is given to their physical, mental, and emotional health. “The purpose of this bill is to place all of the rights that are already in law into one place,” Senator Ausley said. Rebecca Baer, who spent two years in Florida’s foster care system, spoke in support of the bill and “said it felt like she lost about 90% of her rights the day she entered the system,” adding, “at the end of the day, I believe this bill will help youth not go through the same situations that I did.” Read more about the legislation here.

2021 Ideas Challenge Finalists

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The NewDEAL is pleased to announce the finalists from this year’s Ideas Challenge, our biennial policy competition highlighting innovative policy solutions from NewDEAL Leaders across the nation. Their ideas would reimagine the social safety net, create good jobs, expand education opportunities, build more sustainable communities, and strengthen our democracy. This year’s Challenge came at an especially important time to identify best practices, as Leaders grapple with the work of rebuilding and recovery in the wake of the pandemic, and have a unique opportunity to act with federal funds from the American Rescue Plan. Winners in each of five categories will be announced next week during our 11th Annual Leaders Conference, on Thursday, November 18, and be featured in Governing Magazine. Join us on social media to celebrate these extraordinary ideas, and click here to read details on the finalists in all five categories!

Garlin Gilchrist II, Lieutenant Governor (Michigan)

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Reducing Recidivism with Employment

This week, NewDEAL Leader Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist joined leaders from government, business, and law enforcement to announce a new proposal for a  “Job Court” pilot program. The program is a creative solution to decrease recidivism rates by making employment opportunities available for defendants accused of low-level, nonviolent crimes. The $5.5 million investment would give 450 eligible defendants good paying jobs and transferable career skills that will help them find jobs after their sentence. To read more about how this proposal could reduce recidivism and give Michiganders a second chance while also helping businesses staff up, read the article here.

Zach Conine, Treasurer (Nevada)

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Supporting Children with Disabilities with ARP Funding

NewDEAL Leader Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine joined his state’s governor to launch Transforming Opportunities for Toddlers and Students (TOTS), a grant program to support children with disabilities using $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding. Grants are provided through ABLE accounts, tax-free savings accounts that are used to pay for housing, education, transportation, and services related to their disability without losing eligibility for public benefits programs. Treasurer Conine oversees the ABLE program, and has been a champion of expanding the accounts as “pathways out of poverty for 1,000 Nevada families.” Read more about this first-in-the-nation grant program.

Digital Connectivity for All

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Problem

While in the past lack of access to broadband internet may have merely been an inconvenience, it is now a public emergency. Since the onset of the pandemic, Marylanders have had no choice but to rely on access to the internet in order to access critical services, like healthcare, education, public benefits, and work/ business.

In 2017, the Governor sought to address the issue of connectivity through the creation of the Rural Broadband Office by Executive Order. This office has done important work, but there is so much more to be done. The problem in Maryland is greater than a lack of rural access. Our most populous cities experience similar gaps in access, affordability, adoption, and digital literacy. On several metrics, such as broadband upload/download speeds, the situation is worse in our urban areas. (Ex: 41% of Baltimore city residents do not subscribe to the internet and 31% do not own a desktop or laptop).

 

Solution

The creation of the Office of Statewide Broadband (OSB) to expand on the work of the Office of Rural Broadband. It’s purpose is to address the causes of inequitable access – which range from lack of infrastructure to cost – and ensure that every Marylander can be connected to high-quality, high-speed, affordable, internet by 2026.

This office will also be charged with forming partnerships with local jurisdictions, state agencies, our library system, and the private sector to expand digital literacy and broadband across the state. The OSB will ensure that the state has a coordinated response to RFPs issued by the FCC or Federal Government for resources/ grants. OSB will also develop definitions and standards for broadband internet; addressing fair and equal pricing standards; auditing availability, reliability, and affordability of broadband; and collecting and analyzing pertinent data on geographic, economic, and demographic factors.

CommUNITY Response Teams

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Problem

Chester County experienced immeasurable loss during the pandemic, including more than 800 lives and hundreds of businesses. In order to get back to where we were, and ideally have a better economy than we had previously, we need to include all corners of our community to develop long-term, forward thinking solutions that will establish our County as a driver of economic growth during the next 10 years.

 

Solution

Chester County has embarked on a mission to use the American Rescue Plan Act funds to rebuild our community.  A critical part of the process is to include members of the public as part of the evaluation teams that will prioritize and review proposals that would most effectively spend-down the funding.  Seven evaluation teams will be established by Chester County to address each priority area for ARPA funding.  Each team will include representatives from Chester County Government’s finance department, solicitor’s office and strategic planning team, who will facilitate the priority groups. Three county employee volunteers and four volunteers from the community will complete each team.  Members that will help direct the ARPA funds represent a cross section of people covering all ages, genders, socio-economic and geographical areas of the county. This approach helps ensure the difficult questions are asked of proposals, leading to increased results and outcomes.

Brighter Futures Early Learning Scholarships

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Problem

Early Learning is arguably more important than college, yet most new parents are not prepared for the exorbitant cost of quality child care for their young children. The cost of child care also limits parent choice as higher quality programs are out of reach for many. This means those families must choose from lower quality programs that may not be preparing their children for educational success. State and federal governments already support robust scholarships and financial aid programs for post-secondary education. What if these same options were available for quality early learning? The difference that a quality early learning experience has on a child’s overall and long-term educational, social and physical wellbeing is a proven and undisputed fact. Children who access these educational programs return this investment through higher learning achievement, higher employment levels and less economic burden as they become adults. 

 

Solution

An early learning scholarship program that sets aside quality child care slots for children who need it the most: Parents that have hit a “fiscal cliff”, making just enough money to knock them out of most existing child care subsidy programs; Foster parents who currently must pay out of pocket expenses for child care; Teen moms working to earn a high school diploma; and Parents experiencing homelessness.   These “scholarships” should be focused on making sure every child has access to a quality early learning experience so that they can be ready for kindergarten and achieve success in school.    This program would leverage existing systems and expand support for families, which will give them the ability to make the best educational choices for their children at the most critical age, regardless of their income. 

Addressing the impacts of the cliff effect in Massachusetts

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Problem

We know people are working harder and harder but not getting ahead. This problem is particularly salient for our large numbers of low-wage workers depending on public assistance to make ends meet. The Department of Transitional Assistance serves one out of every nine people in Massachusetts with cash benefits and food assistance, but the structure of these programs means that in many cases, benefits are actually contributing to prolonged financial instability. Specifically, eligibility for public benefits has an inverse relationship to income level, which often puts recipients in an impossible position: earning more money can make them worse off if it boosts their income enough to make them ineligible for these benefits. This drop in public benefits that occurs as earnings increase is known as the “cliff effect,” and it explains why some low-wage workers find themselves worse off after a raise. 

 

Solution

We need to offset the disproportionate impact that the cliff effect has on families transitioning out of public assistance and allow them to transition off of benefits without facing an income cliff. My bill, S.119, begins to address this by creating a 3-year pilot program for 100 low-income Western Massachusetts families or individuals who are both working and receiving public assistance. Participants will receive a Massachusetts Earned Income Tax Credit adjustment that rewards work and closes the cliff effect gap during each year of the 3-year program. This bill also includes a savings component of up to $10,000 per participant that would be paid out after the third year of the program. The pilot will test whether the Massachusetts Earned Income Tax Credit can be enhanced to create an effective tool for the state to close the cliff gap in order to ensure that workers are not worse off financially as they move up the income scale.

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