Before we look at the state budget proposals, let’s start with a shout out to Any Baby Can, Easter Seals, the Brighton Center, Metrocare Services, and all the other community organizations that contract with the state of Texas to provide Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) services.
These groups do a great job serving infants and toddlers with autism, speech delays, Down syndrome, and other disabilities and developmental delays during the critical years of brain development from birth to age three.
But a recent review by the federal government, as well as our own research, shows that Texas is falling short of its legal obligation to provide ECI services to all eligible children under age three.
Our research found that Texas ECI enrollment was low for infants and toddlers of all backgrounds — and disproportionately low for Black children. Black children represented only 8 percent of the kids enrolled in Texas ECI services in 2018 but they were 12 percent of children under age 3 in Texas.
Both reports explain that inadequate state funding is the main culprit for under-enrollment.
That’s why we appreciated the good first step that the Legislature took during the 2019 legislative session to start getting ECI funding out of the ditch in fiscal years 2020 and 2021. As you can see in the chart above, they brought funding per enrolled child back up to 2016 and 2017 levels. It was a good start.
But, as you can also see on the graph above, the draft budget bills recently revealed by the Texas House and Texas Senate fail to get us further out of the ditch. (Note that we used the House’s projection for ECI enrollment to calculate per-child funding for both the House and Senate budgets in the graph. The House projection falls between the higher estimate from HHSC and the lower estimate from the Senate.)
In fact, the Senate is proposing a significant cut to ECI — whether you look at funding per child (in the graph above) or just the bottom line appropriations number (in the graphic below).
We’re concerned — but we’re also optimistic that if we all raise our voices, we can work with state legislators over the coming months to keep getting ECI funding out of the ditch.
Visit our Online Action Center to contact the Legislature about fully funding ECI this session:
We take heart knowing that this session legislative leaders have vowed to prioritize funding to support Texas students and schools. As HHSC has shown, ECI plays a key role helping kids get ready for school and reducing the need for special education services. And we’re excited to see that the Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities has called on the Legislature to continue restoring per-child funding for ECI.
Working together with you, we’re optimistic we can reach that objective and together help little Texans learn to walk, communicate with their families, get ready for school, or meet other goals.