Child care in Texas has been described as a market failure and experts and advocates are pushing for it to be revived through public policy that they say would translate to a stronger workforce.
On Tuesday, the Texas House Committee on International Relations and Economic Development held the legislature’s first interim hearing focused on child care in preparation for the upcoming session in January.
The current state of the early childhood education industry, and the state policies surrounding it, were discussed as experts described a lengthy state waiting list for subsidies, budget constraints for state officials and child care providers, and negative repercussions weighing on the state’s economy.
The spotlight on child care comes as House Speaker Dade Phelan flagged early childhood education as an interim charge for the committee to study before the legislature convenes.
More than half of the nine-member committee was absent, as Chair Angie Chen Button, Vice Chair Claudia Ordaz, Rep. Mihaela Plesa and Rep. Ben Bumgarner were the only ones in attendance.
Multiple experts noted how there were more than 80,000 children statewide who were in line for financial assistance to help pay for child care. Cheslee Escobedo of KinderCare, the largest early childhood education provider in the U.S., said 57% of the nearly 12,000 children it serves in Texas receive this assistance through the state Child Care Services program.
“CCS is a critical program that helps families tremendously,” Escobedo said. “Should some or all of these 84,000 children receive care, we know that the number of parents and caregivers able to consistently work, build self sufficiency, pay taxes and stimulate the economy would increase exponentially. Considering ways to decrease the overall wait list or the length of time a family is placed on it, should be critically important and a policy solution worth discussing during next year’s legislative session.”
Ordaz, vice chair of the committee and an El Paso Democrat, asked officials with the Texas Workforce Commission — which distributes this funding to low-income families — how the waiting list issue could be solved. Director of Child Care and Early Learning Reagan Miller said the state agency provides its resources and services based upon available funding, and its federal grant money has increased “exponentially” over the past decade. This has allowed for higher reimbursement rates to child care providers who accept state subsidies and a higher number of children served.
“The legislature… every biennium makes an appropriation for us to pull down these federal funds. We are pulling down the maximum amount they’ll give us right now; Those wait lists are a direct result. That’s the point at which we ran out of money, which is $1.3 billion a year,” added Bryan Daniel, Texas Workforce Commission Chairman. “It’s $1 million for every 100 additional kids. If the federal government makes additional grant dollars available, obviously, we’ll be doing what we need to be to pull that down.”
Texans Care for Children, a nonprofit that advocates for statewide policy changes, released a policy brief on Monday that was issued to lawmakers, recommending three ways to improve the state’s early learning system that included improving the Child Care Services program through additional state funding and updating “the calculation of reimbursement rates.” It also notes other red states that have approved additional investments in child care, including Florida, Alabama and North Dakota.
Increasing the supply of child care programs offering “specific, urgent” needs and ensuring programs can recruit and retain qualified staff were the other two focuses of the brief.
“In recent years, the wait list for the CCS program in Texas has fluctuated from around 60,000 to as many as 97,000 children,” the policy brief states. “In some areas, families can expect to be on the wait list for at least six months and up to two years. From February 2022 to February 2023, Texas was one of only four states that increased the number of children and families on their wait lists for child care assistance, or began placing families on a wait list.”
Tackling child care reform through an economic lens has been an ongoing pursuit of the Employers for Childcare Task Force, which consists of about 65 businesses from various industries statewide with the goal of implementing solutions that would mitigate turnover and understaffing in the workforce due to a lack of accessible, affordable and quality child care. The task force was launched by the Texas Restaurant Association, Early Matters Texas, Texas Association of Business and Texas 2036; Three out of the four organizations had representatives who testified to the committee on Tuesday, mentioning the task force in addition to the focuses of their own organizations.
Wendy Uptain, executive director of Early Matters Texas, shared data and proposed solutions during her testimony, citing a fall 2023 study that found employers were receiving up to a 425% return on investment on child care benefits.
“Child care is this textbook definition of a broken market, right? Parents are paying the max so they can afford. Child care centers are in the red. So, what can we do about that?” Uptain said. “On-site child care, near-site child care, backup services (such as drop-in care) and nontraditional hour care. I should also mention, though, that many employers offer (flexible spending accounts) or child care assistance directly to their employees as well.”
Committee Chair Angie Chen Button, a Republican from Richardson, noted a plan for the committee to submit and publish opinion pieces in major newspapers that would appear to promote some of the policies mentioned by Uptain around employers investing in child care.
“It’s more than a family issue. It’s more than an education issue. It is also a workforce development issue, and also it is an economic development issue,” Chen Button said of child care earlier in the hearing.
Kelsey Erickson Streufert, chief public affairs officer at the Texas Restaurant Association, also called for solutions such as better data collection around child care to evaluate what changes are needed and more organized governance, as multiple agencies overlap with their involvement in the industry.
Small businesses and employees who work nontraditional hours should also be kept in mind when policies are being formed, she said. This includes restaurant workers, health care workers, firefighters, police officers, manufacturing workers and more.
“Our competitor states are really investing in child care, and they’re really looking at it like infrastructure, right? You’re not going to move your family here, you’re not going to keep your family here if you cannot find affordable, quality child care — just like roads, just like water, just like bridges. We’ve really got to start thinking about it in those terms,” Erickson Streufert said.
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Publish date : 2024-09-10 22:01:00
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