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AUSTIN, Texas — On Wednesday, the Texas Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on the budget for the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) and other agencies. Several Texans, including child care providers, are expected to testify on the need for legislators to provide state funding for TWC’s child care scholarship program as the waiting list for the program hovers around 80,000 people.
For many parents, having child care while at work is vital, and for some, it can be financially draining.
“We have spoken to parents who told us about how they were spending their entire paycheck towards child care,” said David Feigen, director of early learning policy at Texans Care for Children.
Feigen said the high cost of child care sometimes pushes parents to stop working to care for their children.
Feigen plans to testify on Wednesday to call for the state to add funding to the child care scholarship program managed by the TWC. It provides financial aid or scholarships for qualified working parents to access high-quality child care.
As of right now, only federal funds support this program for about 150,000 children. They want the state to kick in funding for 10,000 more scholarships. That would cost around $180 million for two years.
“We have done some research that shows Republican-led states, Democrat-led states, many of them are making real investments to serve more families – states like Florida, Alabama, Missouri, North Dakota,” said Feigen. “These are all states who are investing state dollars so that they can serve more families, and we’re calling on Texas to do the same.”
According to TWC, as of September, more than 5,300 of those children on the waitlist are in Travis County. On average, children can be on the waitlist for six months to two years.
“In our experience, what we’ve seen with our families is two years or more,” said Cynthia Smith McCollum, executive director at Open Door Preschools.
McCollum said the money will also help keep much-needed day cares open and safe.
“The business model is, you know, it’s a tightly regulated industry for a very good reason,” said McCollum. “Safety is a primary concern, but that creates a business model that just has no margin for error.”
She said they have to keep a certain number of teachers in a class even if the number of students is lower.
“The business model is razor thin and, you know, almost 90% of our expenses are the people, because it is people taking care of children who are the vast majority of the cost,” said McCollum. “So when you reduce the number of adults caring for children, that is the only way to reduce cost as a business person.”
Feigen said while there are a few bills that could help make this happen, their main focus is to get this into the House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1 budgets.
“If we want the best future for our state, these are the years that need the public funding and the investment,” said McCollum.
The hearing starts at 11 a.m. or upon adjournment of the Senate.
