SUMMARY

This bill establishes the Council on Children and Families to advise the Governor, certain state departments, the Legislature and the judiciary regarding the following goals: to encourage a coordinated system of education and services for children and families, to evaluate the allocation of resources, to promote coordinated budgets and policy, to evaluate program effectiveness and to promote an informal information exchange. The membership of 13 includes 5 commissioners of state departments, a judge and 7 Legislators. Staffing is provided primarily by the Governor's office, which also administers the budget.

This bill ensures that the Governor's Children's Cabinet, and the resultant collaboration on children's policy development and program implementation that it has created, will continue beyond the end of the current administration. Codifying the Governor's Children's Cabinet in statute and endorsing the expectation of interdepartmental program coordination and the use of so-called "pooled-flexible funds" to provide integrated programs and services to children and families was one of the recommendations of the Task Force to Study the Implementation of Alternative Programs and Interventions for Violent and Chronically Disruptive Students.