photo credit: Michelle Marques
Angie Dillon-Shore, Executive Director of First 5 Sonoma County

KRCB's Michelle Marques talks with Angie Dillon-Shore, Executive Director of First 5 Sonoma County, the organization tapped to distribute funding from Measure I, a quarter-cent sales tax for child care and children's health:

Michelle Marques: What is First 5 Sonoma County?

Angie Dillon-Shore: So First 5 Sonoma County is one of 58 county level commissions across the state of California that were established in 1998 through a statewide tobacco tax that supports programs and services for children birth to 5 years old and their parents and caregivers. And so we locally take those tobacco tax dollars, and now a new revenue source that will talk about in a minute, to invest in early care and education, in children's health, in thriving families, and just overall ensuring that our community centers the needs of young very young children.

Michelle Marques: And so recently Sonoma County voters passed something called Measure I, which you now are administering funds for. Can you tell me about Measure I?

Angie Dillon-Shore: That's right. Measure I was passed by Sonoma County voters county wide in November 2024. It's a quarter cent sales tax. And yes, First 5 is the administrator for that because we have the infrastructure that's already set up to administer public funding. That’s coming in at about $32 million annually. And we do what we've always done with those public funds by assessing the needs in the county for children birth to five, and then invest investing in programs and services to support them.

Michelle Marques: And how are the funds distributed?

Angie Dillon-Shore: So the funds are distributed through grants, contracts, stipends, sponsorships, primarily grants and contracts. And then we determine who gets those grants and contracts through things like requests for proposals. We'll put out a invitation for community-based organizations to apply for funding and ask for proposals to address specific needs and specific strategies that are recently published in our strategic plan. And then we engage community members to make decisions about what organizations are the best fit to deliver those services.

Michelle Marques: Now, can you tell me a little bit about that advisory council that you've got to help you out?

Angie Dillon-Shore: Sure. The Board of Supervisors appointed an 11-member community advisory council. This is part of the Measure I ballot measure and there are parents on that council. There are early care and education professionals or childcare providers and administrators and there are children's health and mental health experts including perinatal mental health. And so those folks come together monthly. We just finished a very robust planning process, and they make recommendations around the strategies and the goals for Measure I within the purpose of the voter intent and then help us figure out kind of what are the strategies on the ground that should be funded. And then those recommendations go to the First 5 commission as well as the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

Michelle Marques: All right, excellent. So there has been funding that's already been collected. Has any of it been dispersed?

Angie Dillon-Shore: It sure has. We have spent about $10 million at this point over the last probably seven months. Still moving out, we did about $1 million in mini grants to childcare providers all over the county. There's things like outdoor play equipment, things to make their environments higher quality and more stimulating for children in their care. We have allocated about $3 million in childcare facilities funding, really prioritizing centers and family child care facilities that have things that are kind of high urgency to fix. So mold, roofs, outdoor areas, really focusing on safety with this first tranche of facilities funding. Those grants are in the process right now of going out to community childcare providers. We've also supported 10 different early care and education apprenticeship sites where we have paid ECE apprentices, childcare apprentices through the Santa Rosa Junior College that are actually working at preschool and childcare sites and those sites are now getting funds to help mentor them and support them. We made a few grants to support families who are impacted by homelessness that have really young children. So organizations that specifically support homeless families. And then we also made a large grant, actually two large grants, one for scholarships for clinical students and grad programs that are focusing on supporting the mental health and social emotional health of children and women in the perinatal period. So scholarships for folks to get through their grad school programs because we don't have enough of those clinical folks and also paid apprenticeships with local organizations such as Humanidad here in Sonoma County.

Michelle Marques: How do you measure success from sending out all this funding?

Angie Dillon-Shore: So we have an evaluation plan and staffing at First 5 that focus on supporting community-based organizations to collect certain kinds of data. We don't want that to get in the way of providing services, but we also want to be accountable, especially to the voters and taxpayers of Sonoma County. So we work with our community-based organizations to collect data about who they're serving, how many folks they're serving, what the outcomes that they're getting, and then we provide that information back to the community in annual reports that share, you know, also data but also stories and, you know, really some real life stories about how the programs are impacting families and kids in our community.

Michelle Marques: In the news recently in Minnesota, there have been accusations of childcare fraud and that's prompted investigations, crackdowns and some heightened emotions. So, how do you protect against fraudulent uses of Measure I funds while still protecting the privacy of children and childcare providers, many of whom are immigrants?

Angie Dillon-Shore: That's a really great question. So, you know, we are a public agency, and we've worked in this space of transparency and accountability for 27 years at this point. We have all kinds of processes and procedures that we balance, try to balance the main focus of our community providers is caring for kids and families, but try to balance that appropriately with the need for data, with reporting, with backup documentation for invoices, for payment and things like that. So I would say we have quite robust infrastructure around all of our counting, accounting and evaluation processes.

Michelle Marques: Great. I did see that First 5 Sonoma County is launching a survey for moms to talk about… Yeah, can you tell me about that?

Angie Dillon-Shore: Sure. Anyone that has a child from birth to five, we would love to hear from you about, you know, how that's going and what kind of needs you have that may be unmet. You can go to our website first5sonomacounty.org, and it pops right up, the link to that survey. So, we're trying to understand kind of what are the needs of mothers and fathers and caregivers in our community, that are particularly with really young children, particularly babies, infants, toddlers, and, you know, all the different things that particularly moms deal with when they go back to work, right? There's the, you know, struggle around trying to continue to provide the right kind of care, nurturing, if you're breastfeeding, how do you go back to work to continue doing that? And so it's a survey to really assess what are the top of mind needs for our moms of young children in our county.

Michelle Marques: And Angie, is there anything else that you think the community should know about Measure I and these investments in early childhood?

Angie Dillon-Shore: We just really love to engage the community and invite your participation. So please check out our website and there are commission meetings, advisory council meetings that folks can participate in. Off this survey is an example of what we often do when we have questions about what the needs are. So please sign up for our newsletter so you can hear about those things. Community voice is extremely important in how we design our investments, so invite the community to engage with us.