FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Both parents and daycare workers know the struggles involved with early childcare in Kentucky.
"Childcare was broken before the pandemic. Now, it's become a national crisis," Kathy Donelan told lawmakers on the Senate Families and Children Committee on Tuesday.
For 25 years, Donelan has owned childcare centers in Kentucky. She started her business off in her home and eventually grew into several locations. But she says without help from the state, she doesn't know what the future looks like for the services that she offers.
"Looking at my options, if we do not receive any sort of investment in our industry - I don't like them," Donelan emphasized. "I could close. I don't want to close. But if I did close, I would impact 80 families."
That's why Donelan and other advocates are supporting Sen. Danny Carroll's Horizons Act.
The sweeping bill is meant to shore up and expand the network of childcare centers across Kentucky. Another objective is to bolster early childhood education, according to Carroll. One long-term goal, he said, is to someday make terms like “childcare” and “daycare” obsolete, replaced by early childhood education — no matter the setting or age of the child.
Carroll is proposing that the state pump $150 million per year into his bill’s childcare initiatives in the next two-year budget cycle, which begins July 1.
He admits the $300 million price tag is steep, but he says Kentucky can't afford to not take action.
"In 10 years, we have lost half of our [childcare] providers in this state. Imagine what's going to happen if we do nothing. We anticipate another 20% will close their doors," he said.
The bill comes amid uncertain times for childcare providers and parents. The $24 billion of pandemic aid that Congress passed in 2021 for childcare businesses is drying up.
Carroll said his measure, along with his funding request, would “go a long way toward averting the impending crisis we are about to face if we don’t act with purpose and certainty.”
While pitching his bill on Tuesday, Carroll said Kentucky's childcare situation comes with both short and long term implications. A lack of childcare keeps some parents from working, contributing to low workforce participation rates. Reinforcing early childhood education builds a strong foundation that contributes to student success later in life, Carroll said.
“We must take advantage of this crisis that we’re about to face and we must transform the way that we think about early childhood education and the meaning of this,” Carroll told the committee. “It’s not babysitting. It’s not childcare. It’s not daycare. It’s education.”
His bill, named the Horizons Act, would include state support for childcare centers and families struggling to afford childcare. It would create funds meant to help increase the availability of early childhood education services and to foster innovations in early childhood education.
As part of the initiative, the state community and technical college system would offer an associate degree in early childhood education entrepreneurship, with the goal that graduates would be prepared to operate childcare centers.
“Early childhood education is an afterthought in this state, and we’ve got to make it a priority,” Carroll said when he first introduced the bill. “If we ever want to reach the levels of educational attainment where we want to be, this is where it starts. And I think this is where we’ve been missing the boat for years is by not investing and not providing the best possible early childhood education for as many kids as we can.”
Carroll’s early childhood proposal stands in contrast to one championed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. The governor has proposed providing preschool for every 4-year-old in Kentucky. His budget plan included $172 million each year of the two-year budget to accomplish that. The program would extend preschool education to an estimated 34,000 additional 4-year-olds, freeing up space for more younger children in childcare centers, he said. His proposals have made no headway in the GOP-dominated legislature.
On Tuesday, state Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander, a key member of Beshear’s administration, touted the governor’s universal pre-K plan at the committee hearing while also praising lawmakers for focusing on the issue of early childhood education.
“Investing in these kids is exactly what we should be doing as a commonwealth,” he said.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
