And those improvements should be good for the state's business climate, speakers told a packed room at Wednesday's State of the Young Child symposium.
The second annual gathering drew representatives from many Missoula-area schools, child care agencies, health programs and related organizations. The Missoula Forum for Children and Youth and Head Start organized the forum.
And a lot of progress must be made before the required special session convenes. That includes the governor writing an entirely new executive budget proposal, using current economic information instead of last November's figures. That might change the size of the predicted budget surplus, now estimated at almost $1 billion.
“We need to have something with the ink dry on it before July 1,” Yeakel said, “or we're in trouble.”
On the plus side, Yeakel said children's advocates can be happy with the passage of expanded child health insurance and dental insurance programs. There are also new rules increasing the types of genetic testing done on newborns to catch up with national practices. The state's child abuse and child neglect laws were strengthened and improved, and a potential $1 million trust fund was created to provide matching-grant funds for local projects.
In the other direction, all-day kindergarten legislation failed to make it out of the House, leaving school districts throughout the state wondering if they should go ahead with the program next year. The bills might be reintroduced in the special session, or included in the governor's budget. But even so, their passage might come too late for some districts to set up the additional classrooms needed for the initiative.
The Legislature also rejected several public safety measures, including stricter seat belt, child restraint and helmet rules. And it declined to get involved in large-scale health care reform proposals or affordable housing initiatives.
Investing in those programs has a dollars-and-cents payoff for the state's economy, said Daphne Herling, a statistician for the University of Montana's Bureau of Business and Economic Research.
In the past, many health and education efforts for young children were measured by how much kids learned or expanded their I.Q. That was a poor yardstick, Herling said.
Although roughly 85 percent of a child's brain development is completed by age 3, just 4 percent of the national investment in youth takes place in that age range, she said. The bulk of the spending occurs at high school or college ages, where individual change is much less likely to occur.
Herling is one of the main researchers for the annual “Kids Count” collection of Montana youth statistics. She said Montana remains in seriously poor shape regarding access to health insurance. In addition to having more than one in five families living below the federal poverty line, Herling said there are significant numbers of people making $50,000 who can't get health insurance here.
New data have shown that children who get adequate health care grow up less likely to end up on welfare, unintentionally pregnant or in jail, Herling said. They also tend to become better-educated, more-skilled workers for the labor force.
“Legislators looking at budgets want returns now - not 20, 30, 40 years down the pike,” Herling said. “But employers know these pay off. They know their employees have these issues.”
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com
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