Take Action NOW to encourage our budget writers to prioritize early learning

SIGN NOW: let's encourage our budget writers to invest in early childhood

Right now budget writers are sitting down in Olympia to decide the priorities for our state budget for the next 2 years – and we want early learning, including child care, to be a top priority. Families like yours and mine know that we need long term investments to solve the childcare crisis. But right now we need to stop gap investments now to ensure children, families, and providers can weather through this crisis.

We need them to make sure that early learning is a top priority to include within the budget and make sure they add to the long term investment that our communities need.

Sign our petition to encourage our budget writers to invest in early learning, and child care needs for our children and families. We want to make sure that families, providers, and children have all the resources that they need to succeed.

Join us NOW, and let's encourage our budget writers that we need a MAJOR investment in early learning!

Dear Budget Writers,

I am calling on you to ensure investments in early childhood are top priorities as you build our state’s budget. High quality early care and education opportunities are critical to support the growth and development of children, and provide families with the necessary resources to thrive!

When it comes to our state’s budget, please prioritize these critical opportunities to support children, families, and providers:

Child Care:

Invest in the child care workforce with investments that achieve:

Working Connections Child Care subsidy rate to 85th percentile ($271.740M) Complex needs fund ($13.396M)
Enrollment based pay for providers ($114.397M)
Eliminate background check fees and streamline process ($6.519M) Infant and early childhood mental health consultation ($4M)
Budget proviso to plan for universal access to child care and living wages and benefits for providers ($1M)

Include job searches count as work activity in Working Connections Child Care ($33.570M)
Support for Family Friend and Neighbor Care ($2.4M)
Fund the Imagine Institute to graduate 150 new child care providers a year through peer- to-peer mentorship, opening as many as 5,000 new licensed child care slots. ($2.5M)
Expanded access to non-standard hours of care by increasing the Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) bonus for offering child care between 6pm-6am from $90 a month to $500, to truly incentivize providers to offer non-standard hours of care for more families. ($41.48M)

ECEAP:

Expand ECEAP funding ($123.153M) as well as a cost per child rate increase ($168M) and complex needs fund ($11.08M) increase

Thank you,

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