Child-care providers ask Senate to add peer-review appeals and workforce supports to budget

Multiple child-care providers and representatives of the Care Economy Organizing/CEO Project urged the Senate Finance Committee to include a peer-review appeal process and workforce-support measures in the state budget. Nafree (Nafree/Nefree) Cook (CEO Project) and operators Sandra Phillips and Tashiana Quachie described centers that serve low-income families, noted that many child-care staff cannot afford child care for their own children, and asked senators to add Senate Bill 177 (Free Child Care for Child Care Workers) to the omnibus budget. Witnesses said the bill would allow child-care workers to receive free care for their children in exchange for their services, stabilizing workforce supply and opening classroom capacity for families.

Cook and others also asked the committee to restore the licensing peer-review appeals language that had been removed from the bill; Cook said the appeals process “won’t cost you nothing” and is necessary to prevent closures based on ambiguous rule interpretations and inconsistent licensing findings. Sandra Phillips told the committee she has operated Pitter Patter Learning Center for more than a decade and that the measure would allow recruitment and retention of qualified staff.

Why it matters: Providers said the combined measures would help address supply shortages by making child-care employment viable for staff who currently cannot afford care for their own children and by protecting small businesses from license-based closures that providers say result from inconsistent enforcement.

Ending: Witnesses appealed for inclusion of SB 177, higher eligibility rates for publicly funded child care, and restoration of the peer-review appeals process in HB 96 to stabilize the child-care sector and expand capacity.