Child care ideas from state legislators, governor, president

Child care everywhere

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It’s not every day you see an 8-month-old in the state legislative building. It’s even more rare to see one behind the podium in the press room. Yet Thursday was different, as bipartisan child care proposals took center stage at the General Assembly. In fact, this whole week was different.

As I covered the early childhood caucus bills filed Thursday — including a $300 million request to continue child care stabilization — the White House was releasing President Joe Biden’s budget proposal, which includes $600 billion in preschool and child care investments. A few days earlier, Gov. Roy Cooper delivered his final State of the State address. Guess what he spoke about? You guessed it: child care.

“It’s a triple play, guys,” Cooper said last Monday. “Education for the child, a job earning money for the parent, and a badly needed employee for the business.”

The five bills the caucus filed in both chambers last week would:

• Send a one-time $300 million to child care programs to support teacher compensation as federal stabilization funds run out.
• Raise the subsidy rates to the 2021 market rate survey results, and establish a subsidy floor rate (go here for what that means).
• Provide doula services and group prenatal care for mothers and babies on Medicaid and raise Medicaid rates for obstetric care providers.
• Establish a 3-county, 3-year pilot based on a model from Michigan that splits the cost of child care between employers, eligible employees, and state government.
• Rethink the state’s Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) for licensed child care programs.

What’s missing from this list?

Many advocates were hoping for the expansion of WAGE$, an education-based wage supplement program that incentivizes teacher retention. There will likely be a separate bill filed for this proposal, as it was brought up by a legislator at the caucus meeting Thursday.

Looking down the line, the proposals do not account for any new long-term funding stream for the early childhood system as other states have recently established. In that press conference, I asked what another one-time investment in child care would mean for the long-term.

Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, Lee, Sampson, co-chair of the caucus, answered: “Long-term, we have to figure something else out.”

These bills are simply filed for now. WRAL reporter Travis Fain asked Thursday if Republican leadership, absent from the press conference, were on board. Burgin and Rep. David Willis, R-Union, said the offices of Senate President Pro-Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, have given them input and support.

“I can assure you that everyone at this point is concerned about the future of our youngest learners in the future of our workforce,” Willis said. “And so we’ve gotten full support from them on this. And this is a priority going through, as we’re speedily already going through the budget process that’s being talked about in both chambers.”

I’ll be looking into what we can learn from Michigan’s model and covering these bills as they move through committees. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, story ideas, or just to connect.