Ayotte Pushes Navy to Better Support PNSY Childcare Center and Shipyard Workers

In a letter last week to U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Dixon Smith, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte continued her advocacy on behalf of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) workers by pressing the Navy leadership in Washington to provide the shipyard with the resources it needs to resolve unacceptably long wait times at the Child Development Center (CDC).

"... I am concerned about the Navy's delays in providing PNSY the resources it needs to improve unacceptable wait lists and wait times at its Child Development Center (CDC).... I am deeply concerned about this delay as workers at PNSY continue to wait for months and months to gain access to quality and convenient childcare," Ayotte wrote. "I look forward to working together to address this issue without delay."

Ayotte has led efforts in the Senate pressing the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Navy to address the wait times and wait lists at the PNSY CDC. On May 11, 2015, Senator Ayotte toured the PNSY CDC, in part to learn more about the lengthy wait times for PNSY parents. Little more than a week after her visit, Ayotte successfully included language in the Senate Armed Services Committee's (SASC) Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Report (114-49), which highlighted the CDC backlog and conveyed SASC's expectation that DOD "monitor wait-times closely at DOD child development centers and... develop policies to shorten the wait-times of those facilities significantly." On April 5, 2016, as Chair of the Senate Armed Services Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee, Ayotte convened a hearing on public shipyards and raised the CDC issue with Admiral Smith.

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