Cutting investments in children will do more harm than good

By Pat Willis

More and more children are suffering in the shadows.

If a child goes to school hungry and he suffers in silence, can we claim he has a fair chance of learning anything? If a mother leaves her preschooler with her sixth-grader because she has no money for child care, can we claim there is no waiting list for child care subsidies? If a family turns to the ER for a daughter with asthma is it because they have no insurance?

With declining revenues for state services and rising numbers of families trapped in a down economy, too many children are suffering in the shadows. Yet, in many cases, they are not counted among those statistics that tell us we have problems. But we will be forced to count them later when they fail in school, or when a neighbor calls DFCS, or when a child is admitted to the hospital.

State agencies have been making tough decisions. The governor has asked them to make cuts in their budgets to match the cuts in revenues he sees every month. State legislators will take on these decisions in January as they convene to decide what to fund in the next year’s budget.

We want to assume that Georgia’s policy-makers are taking a compassionate yet smart approach when they face these painful choices. We hope they’re asking themselves honest, tough questions:

Are we funding what works? If research proves that a program posts results, don’t cut it.

Are we focusing on prevention? Problems that never happen don’t cost us money tomorrow. Programs for very young children and their families, such as home visiting, HeadStart and pre-k, can mean lower costs for remediation, more kids staying in school, fewer dropouts and less delinquency later.

Are we encouraging better collaboration between state agencies? When two, three or four state agencies support different services for the same child, we need to require them to plan together, share resources, and then evaluate their collective impact.

Is quality our top priority? Reducing staff should mean redefining priorities so that we deliver effective services. Otherwise, all services, effective and ineffective, decline across the board.

Even after applying these basic principles, the simple truth is, we can’t cut our way into a budget that saves lives.

Our lawmakers have a responsibility to identify new, innovative revenue sources to meet the current needs of all our state. They also have an obligation to make essential investments in our most precious resource — those who will grow up in 10 and 20 years to run households, businesses and communities all over Georgia.

If we cut too many lifelines during this critical period, then long after the rest of the America pulls out of this downturn, Georgia will be paying a heavy price throughout the next decade and beyond. It will pay the price for having far too many kids with physical and emotional scars that keep them from being able to graduate from school, and keep them from finding jobs, buying homes and joining the trained, flexible workforce that 21st century global employers demand.

Pat Willis is executive director of Voices for Georgia’s Children.