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Sixty-five percent of children under six in Louisiana live in households without a stay-at-home parent, according to the 2006 Agenda for Children-Kids Count Special Report on Child Care. Children’s advocates say it gives day-care centers enormous influence during the time the brain is most ripe for learning.

The concept of tracking the quality of child-care providers nationwide is new. Most states only ask that facilities meet minimum licensing requirements.

That’s about to change. This fall, the Department of Social Services and a team of children’s advocates will roll out a voluntary five-star quality rating system for child-care facilities.

Furthermore, a companion tax package proposed this legislative session in Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s executive budget provides incentives for child-care providers to move up in the rankings, thus creating a long-term mechanism to “build and support quality,” says psychiatry professor Geoffrey Nagle, director of Tulane University’s Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and a partner on the project.

The School Readiness Tax Credit, endorsed by 16 of the state’s major children’s advocates, would provide $40 million annually in a four-tiered tax system that rewards child-care facilities as they improve, particularly in the area of staff skills. Facilities and teachers aren’t the only ones to receive tax breaks. Parents would as well for selecting centers with high ratings. Businesses that help centers improve could also be eligible.

“This is extremely progressive policy for a state,” Nagle says. “It puts Louisiana way out ahead of the curve.” Nagle says only 14 states currently have quality rating systems; eight are exemplary, and none has yet to marry the system with a tax-credit package.

The rating system is voluntary, but Nagle says that’s not unusual. “The market—parents—will ultimately push centers to participate.”

It’s a vast improvement from the state’s licensing system, recently ranked 51 of 52 in the 2005 Child Care Licensing Study by the National Association for Regulatory Administration.

The proposed School Readiness Tax Credit will go to the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee.

The government: your client?

It’s fraught with paperwork and requires patience, but doing business with the government might be a good move for entrepreneurs.

The 2-year-old Hudson Initiative aims to recruit more small business into the state’s bidding process. Information about the program, along with other resources, will be featured at the Louisiana Economic Development Department’s annual Entrepreneurship Day on May 22. The event starts at 10 a.m. at the Louisiana State Museum in downtown Baton Rouge and continues in the Capitol Rotunda, where 13 tables of small-business advocates will answer questions until 3 p.m.

Unlike the federal government, the state has no set-asides for women- or minority-owned businesses, but sets goals for contracting with all small businesses through the Hudson Initiative. Some 900 businesses have registered, says Craig Hartberg of the department’s Entrepreneurship Services.

Interested companies should also be certified by LED that their gross annual revenue is less than $3 million ($5 million for construction), that they have less than 50 employees and that they’re domiciled in Louisiana. Furthermore, they should register with the Louisiana Procurement and Contract Network (LaPAC) as well as with the individual departments they may want to work with, Hartberg says.

Bureaucracy notwithstanding, the process might pay off. “At any given time, there are hundreds of bid opportunities,” says Rosemary Jackson, program manager with the state Office of Procurement. Jackson said that during a 10-month period last year, the state conducted $9 million in non-construction business with private companies.

Entrepreneurship Day features such group s as the Baton rouge Area Chamber, Women’s Business Council and the Louisiana Procurement Technical Assistance Center. LA PTAC counsels small businesses via working with the state and federal government, which sets an annual goal of 5% for contracting with women-owned businesses.

Program manager Sherrie Mullins says it’s a way for established companies to find clients. In LA PTAC’s 18-year history, businesses have landed more than $3 billion in government contracts.

For details about Entrepreneurship Day, e-mail Craig Hartberg at hartberg@la.gov and visit la-ptac.org.