Governor Ferguson: No more cuts to child care and early learning!

It's a rainy day, Governor Ferguson, and Washington families are already weathering quite the storm. With the cost of everything from groceries to health care going up, the last thing Washington families need is a higher bill for child care.

Washington families are bracing for the impacts of budget cuts. Last session, early learning and child care absorbed over $1 billion in cuts and delays, despite accounting for a relatively small share of the overall state budget. Additionally, massive, devastating budget cuts to health care and food assistance programs on the federal level are causing uncertainty about how governors will respond and which programs will be cut to balance state budgets. We shouldn’t be balancing the budget on the backs of children and working families.

Governor Ferguson is currently crafting his proposed budget for 2026—a budget that will either propose catastrophic cuts to child care or chart a path forward with new, progressive revenue to give families a much-needed break. In addition to having the option to equitably tax the very wealthy and create new, progressive revenue for our state, we have the Rainy Day Fund that our state created for moments of crisis exactly like this one. Well, the rain is here! Cuts to child care and early learning must be prevented.

Sign on and tell Governor Ferguson: Protect investments in child care and early learning!

Dear Governor Ferguson,

From closed preschool programs in the Tri-Cities to eliminated summer and after-school care for farmworker families in Walla Walla and Prescott, to child care that’s impossible to find or afford in King County—Washington families are struggling. MomsRising is hearing directly from parents about the impacts of over $1 billion in delays and cuts to child care and early learning from last session. We urge you to hold the line in your proposed supplemental budget by rejecting further cuts to child care and early learning and fully protecting existing investments in critical programs.

Specifically, we hope that you will continue to safeguard the following:

Moving center provider rates to the 2024 Market Rate Survey in October 2026: Implement the planned October 2026 adjustments to ensure that child care providers’ pay keeps pace with the rising cost of care.
Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) access: WCCC is a lifeline for the families it serves. Resurrecting draconian policies from the Great Recession that limit access to WCCC would represent a major failure in our state’s work to support working families and child care providers.
Rates for infant and non-standard hours care: Ensure that nominal rate increases for care during evenings, weekends and for infants remains funded and intact for families who work non-standard hours as hospital staff, first responders, and service workers.
Commitments to weathering budget challenges with the Rainy Day Fund and new, progressive revenue: Leverage new, progressive revenue to respond to devastating federal budget cuts from HR1 and the Trump Administration and ensure the state can continue investing in early learning and child care programs as well as other basic needs including housing, food, and health care for families. Further, our state created a rainy day fund for exactly these moments of crises—we urge you to put it to use.

Parents and caregivers can’t work if child care isn’t working for them. Protecting funding for child care and early learning is essential to ensuring that families can afford care, child care providers can remain open, and kids have access to the high-quality care that sets them up for lifelong educational success.

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