State Policy
Voices for Utah Children Policy Agenda for the 2019 Legislative Session
All kids have health care coverage and access!
We remain 100% committed to making sure that 100% of kids who are eligible for health care, have it. That means we will be working hard during the 2019 legislative session to ensure that the voter-approved Medicaid expansion is implemented with fidelity by April 1st, so all kids and their families can thrive. We will be working with community and agency partners to expand opportunities for kids to access preventative medical and dental services, too.
- Ensure Medicaid expansion is implemented, without barriers, cuts or delays
- Promote access to preventative medical or dental services
- Establish continuous eligibility for kids on Medicaid to keep kids covered all year round
All kids get the care they need from their parents and families!
Sometimes parents need to access help in the community and from state programs in order to care for their kids. When parents are looking for help, we need to make sure it is easy for them to get the help they need to best support their families. We will be supporting legislation that creates an Early Childhood Commission in the Governor’s office, to make sure that any programs or services offered for the empowerment and support of families are well coordinated, aligned with best practices and easy to access.
We will also be supporting legislation that expands access to maternal mental health services for new moms, as screening and referrals are critical for making sure new mothers and their babies get the support they need. Once parents head back to work, they need to know they can take time off to care for sick kids; that’s why we will be partnering with other community organizations to push for increased Family & Medical Leave availability for Utah workers.
- Align and streamline programs that empower parents, through a newly formed Early Childhood Commission
- Improve screening, referral and treatment to promote maternal mental health statewide
- Expand family and medical leave for Utah’s working parents
All kids have a chance to live in economically prosperous families!
Every Utah kid deserves an equal shot at a successful, prosperous future. That’s hard to imagine for children growing up in a cycle of intergenerational poverty, or in a family that is constantly struggling to make ends meet. Voices for Utah Children supports tax and budget proposals – such as a State Earned Income Tax Credit – that give low-income families a shot at an economically prosperous future.
During the 2019 session, Voices will keep an eye on tax policies that hit low-income families harder. We will oppose efforts to bring back the tax on food, one of the most regressive tax policies out there, and other increases on sales tax.
- Establish a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for working families.
- Oppose regressive tax policies, such as a higher sales tax on food and income tax rate reductions that mostly benefit upper-income households while harming Utah’s underfunded schools.
- Monitor proposals by Governor Herbert and the Utah Legislature to modernize Utah’s tax structure to provide tax relief to low and middle income families and to ensure that revenue is available to fund vital services and infrastructure.
All kids start school ready to learn and thrive!
Decades of research show that high quality early learning opportunities produce results: better academic outcomes for kids, as well as long-term benefits for our economy. Voices for Utah Children will advocate for continued state investment in promising early learning programs, such as the Granite School District’s high-quality pre-school model and the innovative UPSTART online learning program. We will work with our many community and agency partners to align and improve existing early education programs, to set the stage for future expansion of high-quality early learning opportunities for Utah kids.
- Support continued funding and quality improvement for existing state-funded high-quality early learning programs.
All kids have equal access to justice in schools and community!
We believe in the data-driven reforms made to Utah’s juvenile justice system in the past two years, and we will work with legislators to ensure that the tax payer dollars saved from those reforms are reinvested into early intervention programs for Utah children. We will advocate for school safety policies that are aligned with this successful reform effort, and we will push back against policies that threaten to exacerbate existing disparities in school discipline for children of color, children with disabilities and gender-non-conforming youth.
Kids deserve to see justice, equality and due process modeled for them in our juvenile justice system. That’s why we will also advocate for legislation to ensure that young people appearing in court are always represented by an attorney.
- Reinvest savings from juvenile justice reform into early intervention programs for young people.
- Champion school safety policies that protect all children equally.
- Ensure that all youth appearing in juvenile court are represented by an attorney.
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