By: Diane Benjamin
The groups below got grants. Some grants say PLANNING and some say Implementing, but they all relate to the Birth to Five program:
United Way (various locations) Spark $59,900, Northwest Consortium $44,309, Champaign $108,758
YWCA (various locations) Willowbrook-$90,228, Tri-Town (Villa Park)-$52,700, North Chicago-$75,000
The Collaboration for for Early Childhood care and Education $113,764
Peoria Regional Office of Education $99,493
Start Early Chicago $113,764
Never heard of Birth to Five? See this: https://www.birthtofiveil.com/reports/#needs AND https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61ba6b3017614378f01ce468/t/6859a3dadc6e9d09a8c39ac4/1750705138887/R_2023-2025_ImpactReport_English.pdf
The State of Illinois got a ton of money thrown at them. In FY 2020 and 2021 the INCCRRA tax return shows receiving over $500 million in government grants both years. https://blnnews.com/2026/01/16/the-local-ngos-tax-return-inccrra/
Various programs were started, Birth to Five is just one of them. What INCCRRA did was divide the State into 39 regions. Each region had paid staff and a furnished office to hold needs assistance meetings to discuss childcare. The first link above is the compiled report by region. McLean County was combined with DeWitt, Logan, and Livingston Counties.
What did all this organizing and conversation reveal? Day child care workers don’t get paid enough. (duh) The next big push will be to get employers to subsidize childcare.
Have you seen the new center going up at GE Road and Hershey? It is going to be called The FarmHouse. Care for a child 6 weeks to 35 months is $83 a day. ($415 for a 5 day week) https://thefarmhouseldc.com/enrollment/
I have no idea how the heads of those 39 regions were picked. I believe people were paid to attend their “assessment” sessions. I have no idea how those participants were picked either. Has anything improved since Birth to Five started?
See the one page report below, one page reports from all 39 regions are at the link above. Just compiling a full color with pictures report had to be expensive – especially if copies were printed.
Federal Funding was probably provided through the Build Back Better bill. Childcare was discussed before the Inflation Reduction Act passed, but I’m not sure if any money was included. Both bills created the 9% inflation we experienced. That made childcare even more unaffordable.
COVID subsidies were ending and needed replaced.
One final consultants story coming. So far I have ONLY looked at spending on “consultants”. I haven’t looked at the rest of the INCCRRA tax return with A LOT more spending. Since INCCRRA won’t provide data, every FOIA request has to go to Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) who has to get the information from INCCRRA. It takes weeks.