Supporting Working Families: State-Led Child Care Solutions

You guys just moved this? She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's classic. Oh, no kidding. She's having a hard time. Oh, my gosh, smell that. Look at that. No, it's not that old. Oh. I don't know where my s- Did you have a bottle of this? No, I don't think. Well, I have them. Oh. In the opening. Oh. I just, cuz I brought them over. Okay. But they usually do. I don't know what's Uh, what else do I have? What do I have? um i didn't know there were so many different ways to do it uh you know like first aid you have to be in a cabin yeah uh nurse care is um um you can't do nothing like that um but once a month at home so if you have a right day that's you know day after your doctor comes it's possible yeah so yeah that's my The subcommittee on early childhood, elementary, and secondary education will come to order. I note that a quorum is present. Without objection, the chair is authorized to call recess at any time. For the third time this Congress, this scup subcommittee turns its attention to child care, rounding out a series that has examined why child care is essential to helping working parents thrive and local economies grow. As we have learned, child care is a family issue. but it is also a workforce issue, an employment issue, and an economic issue. Child care is a rare sector that operates within a unique and very complex ecosystem. Its business model makes it possible for parents to remain in the workforce, making children child care the workforce behind the workforce. The sector is regulated by various state laws, local ordinances, and municipal codes, recognized by employers as necessary for business success, felt by parents as an economic burden, and critical to workforce retention across the country. Yet it is also challenged to sustain a sizable workforce capable of providing enough care while maintaining low child to provider ratios. We can easily see how and why access to high-quality, affordable child care is multifaceted. And this subcommittee has seen that solutions to these challenges must be equally multifaceted. No one entity can solve the child care challenge alone, including the federal government. Certainly, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, or CCDBG, the primary federal program supporting child care for low-income working fi- families has a vital role to play. But when the block grant serves only about ten percent of the population needing child care in this country, and annual cost of that care averages more than thirteen thousand dollars for one child it's clear that alongside federal support, state investment, private sector employer participation, economic development organizations, and public-private partnerships, all have much to contribute to addressing the cost and availability of child care for the nation's workforce. According to the Child Care Trust, the long-term economic burden of insufficient child care on households, businesses, and tax revenues totals between two hundred and three hundred billion dollars. That fact alone underscores the need for a multifaceted solution involving many different stakeholders. Now, there certainly may be an argument for increased federal investment. But I think we would all recognize that th- that this alone is not going to solve the problem. And federal policy should give states the freedom to make taxpayer dollars go further, bring in private partners, and build child and sh- build comprehensive child care solutions. And that is what today's hearing is all about, learning from states about the innovative ways they are tackling child care for the benefit of families the workforce and local communi communities. The states represented here today are demonstrating what long-term commitment can look like not because federal funding is guaranteed forever but because supporting child care strengthens the workforce improves productivity, and fuels local economic growth. Their examples show what is possible when innovation and responsibility meet, and we hope that they will inspire other states to follow their path. Because when child care works, parents can work, businesses can grow, and communities can thrive. With that, I yield to the ranking member for an opening statement.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Affordable, accessible, and quality child care is essential for children, for families, employers, and for the economy. And because a substantial amount of brain development happens in the first few years of a child's life, quality early childhood education has a significant return on investment. Last week I held a child care round table at home in Oregon, and I heard very clearly from my constituents that Congress as well as states and private sector should be investing in early childhood programs and doing more to address the high cost of child care. Too many families we represent are struggling to stretch every paycheck to cover necessities and child care is often one of the most expensive line items in the family budget in many communities the problem isn't simply just the cost, families can't find care. When parents can't find quality child care, they reduce their hours, turn down promotions, or leave the workforce entirely. That's what happened to one of the parents at our round table. She told us she had to quit her job because her entire paycheck would be going to child care. When parents stay home and work uh and out of the workforce with their kids, it should be by choice, not because they can't afford child care. In fact, the lack of affordable child care costs our economy an estimated one hundred and seventy-two billion dollars every year in lost earnings, productivity and revenue. That's not a failure on the part of parents or providers. It's a policy failure. And we are here, I hope, to discuss solutions to address it. Some of those solutions come from innovation at the state level, so I welcome our discussion today. It's clear that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to child care. The testimony today recognizes that families have differing needs and schedules and child care has to reflect those demands. As the witnesses discuss in their testimony, states and localities are finding creative ways to expand supply, lower costs, strengthen providers, and support the child care workforce. And New Mexico, for example, eliminated income requirements and co-payments for participating families. Vermont uses capacity incentives to help providers expand so they can serve more families. Massachusetts continued to support providers after the federal COVID stabilization funding expired. Washington DC has some innovative approaches to improving compensation for early childhood educators. And my home state of Oregon is working to create a child care toolkit specifically for businesses. We should build on these successful models to expand access without sacrificing quality. I want to caution, however, about shifting the burden of child care and the crisis, uh, to states, employers, families, or even to the private sector and calling it a solution. Shifting responsibility will not solve the problem. Employers have an important role to play, but as we discussed it at our hearing in January, child care is simply not a workplace perk, it's a necess- a necessary investment. and a critical piece of our economic infrastructure. Most uh small and mid-sized businesses do not have the resources to solve a nationwide child care crisis uh and shortage on their own. States can help, but many states are already facing budget cuts. And it's clear that families cannot solve the workforce shortage by paying more because the cost is already high. That's why federal investment matters. For example, during the pandemic, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, CCDBG, demonstrated what federal resources can accomplish. Congress provided additional funding that states use to serve more children, increase provider payment rates, and stabilize participating child care businesses. That stabilization funding benefited an estimated two hundred and twenty-five thousand providers, serving ten million children. That was not government getting in the way of innovation, it was government giving states and providers the resources they needed to innovate and respond to a crisis. But w- and regrettably, we still have an enormous gap. In twenty twenty five, CC uh B D BG served roughly nine hundred and twenty-one thousand children, but nearly six point four million children were eligible. Current funding levels only allow about fourteen percent of eligible children to participate in the program. The expiration of relief dollars paired with stagnant uh funding has led to increased wait lists and fewer families served. It's my hope that today's discussion will focus on how we take what is working, and make it available to more families. We should support states that are raising provider payment rates. We should invest in child care workers who are often paid poverty wages. We should expand the supply of care, particularly in rural communities and child care deserts. And we should support providers who are there for parents like firefighters and nurses who work nontraditional hours. And we should make that care that exists affordable. We should also be willing to acknowledge what has not worked. We can and should investigate fraud and protect taxpayer dollars, but that should be without jeopardizing the care families need. Accountability and investment are not mutually exclusive. The answer to a broken system is not to abandon it, it's to fix it. Innovation can show us the way forward, but Congress should support those innovations with the investment they need to reach families across the country even in states with budget shortfalls. What we can and should do is pass legislation like the Child Care for Working Families Act, which would cap costs for families, expand access to high-quality care, and invest in the child care workforce. With federal investment, states can better support providers, lower costs, and make child care accessible and affordable to families. Without it, child care workers will continue to be underpaid and families will be priced out, burned out, and left out. Thank you, Mister Chairman, I look forward to the discussion and I yield back.

Thank you very much. Pursuant to Committee Rule eight C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the Committee Clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by five p m fourteen days after this hearing and without objection the hearing record will remain open for fourteen days to allow certain statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I'll now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is M- Ms. Ryan Page, Director of Child Care at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, in Des Moines, Iowa. Our second witness is Ms. Kate Shanks, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Frankfort, Kentucky. Our third witness is Ms. Hannah Melnick, Senior Policy Advisor and Director of Early Learning Policy at the Learning Policy Institute in Washington, DC. And our fourth witness is Ms. Jude White, Assistant Commissioner for Child Care and Community Services at the Tennessee Department of Human Services in Nashville, Tennessee. We thank the witnesses for being here today and we look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to committee rules, I ask that you each limit your oral presentation to a three minute summary of your written statement. The clock will count down from three minutes, as committee members have many questions for you. However, pursuant to committee rule eight D and committee pragmatists, we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the five minute mark. I would also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of your responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. I'll first recognize Ms. Page for your testimony.

Thank you so much. Chairman Kiley, Ranking Member Bonamici and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify at today's hearing on state-led child care solutions. Um, I'm Ryan Page, I serve as the Child Care Director at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. I've worked in the child care policy space since twenty fourteen and have served the state of Iowa for nearly twenty years. HHS oversees the Child Care and Development Fund and all regulatory responsibilities over the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Child care is essential to Iowa's economic strength, and CCDF funding plays a critical role in supporting family stability and workforce participation. Under Governor Reynolds' leadership, Iowa has taken a pragmatic and data-driven approach. And our strategy is rooted in the understanding that child care's supply depends on the financial stability of providers and the strength of the workforce. Because communities differ across Iowa, solutions are most effective when tailored locally, and supported by regional partners, employers, and community leaders. Over the past five years, Iowa has added and maintained approximately twenty thousand child care slots statewide. A key partner in this work is our child care resource and referral network. They provide technical assistance, coaching, regulatory support, professional development, behavioral health sor- resources, and parent referrals. This year, Iowa also added community development specialists. They work directly with employers and local governments to help communities understand their child care needs and build customized solutions. The Iowa Child Care Roadmap gives communities a single place to access tools and resources for building and sustaining child care. We have implemented targeted initiatives to strengthen supply, investing to help employers secure child care slots, investing in the Child Care Solutions Fund in nine pilot communities with a two-to-one match, Many of those communities have continued these efforts independently, demonstrating that long-term sustainability can happen through short-term state support. We also partner with the Child Care Collaborative of Iowa to provide financial coaching and help programs adopt child care management software. These tools reduce administrative burden and support long-term business sustainability. We launched Iowa Child Care Connect. This is a five million dollar platform that provides near real-time child care availability. by age, location, and commuting route. This improves transparency for families and helps communities better understand their demand. We've also worked to reduce regulatory burden while maintaining safety and quality through Governor Reynolds' executive order ten we are simplifying rules for relatives providing subsidized care and we streamlined regulations for facilities operating inside school buildings. To strengthen the workforce, Iowa created the Child Care Assistance for the Workforce program. which allows child care workers to qualify for assistance regardless of income. Since twenty twenty-three, nearly two thousand and four hundred families have benefited, retention has remained strong, with over half of participating families renewing their eligibility across multiple years. We've partnered with the Iowa Department of Education, creating the child care continuum of care grants, supporting partnerships between preschools and licensed child care centers, supporting more than three hundred children and allowing parents to fully participate in the workforce. We continue to invest in early childhood educators through programs that improve qualifications, raise wages, and stabilize the workforce. Last year alone, Iowa supported hundreds of participants achieving strong retention rates and delivering meaningful wage increases for early childhood professionals. In conclusion, Iowa's experience and approach shows that consistent, practical, community-informed, and partnership-driven strategies lead to sustainable results. By focusing on workforce stability, financial sustainability, and targeted investments, Iowa has expanded child care access while strengthening families and local economies. Thank you for the opportunity to share Iowa's work.

Thanks very much. I'll next recognize recognize Ms. Shanks for your testimony.

Thank you, Chairman Kiley. Ranking Member Bonamici, members of the set of committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today to talk about what Kentucky has been working on. I'm Kate Shanks. I'm the Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. This is a critical issue for the business community because it's a workforce issue. That's our focus on child care. Our Center for Policy and Research found that you can reduce the cost of child care, increase availability, you can help upwards of sixteen thousand to twenty-eight thousand Kentuckians rejoin the workforce. That is very meaningful in a state like Kentucky. Child care is very important to the community our board of directors identified it as a top strategic priority and in twenty twenty four we launched the Kentucky collaborative on child care to develop consensus driven solutions to our biggest child care problems. That work helped inform house bill six a comprehensive piece of legislation that passed the Kentucky general assembly with bipartisan support earlier this year we greatly appreciate the leadership of the business community our partners at the collaborative and of course the work of the Kentucky general assembly that has passed. meaningful legislation and also provided important appropriations to support the programs. I wanna walk through just a few of the examples of where we've been innovative in Kentucky. First we'll talk about the child care workforce. We make child care workers eligible for child care assistance regardless of income. This helped five thousand three hundred people, approximately fifty three hundred people in Kentucky last year, and you can imagine the number of families impacted by that. It's a retention tool and it's a recruitment tool for the child care industry, uh, that struggles with Second, we created a new license for micro centers. These are smaller centers that serve less than thirty kids. They typically have um different uh regulations on playgrounds, kitchens, mixing age groups, and they fill that gap in between family child care homes and larger child care facilities that are it's important for certain areas of our state, as well as important for certain workforce types. So that's a new thing that we have added. Third, we created the certified child care community program in recognizing the local government has a role in this. We need to look at our land use rules, we need to look at planning and zoning, and this program created a model ordinance, resources, and steps local governments can take to address some of their um land use rules that can create challenges for building new child care centers and creating more child care homes we also addressed affordability with Kentucky's tri-state model which is the employee child care assistance program. This is a voluntary program for businesses. They can set the benefit level for workers. And then the state will match it up to dollar for dollar, and so a two hundred dollar benefit can become a four hundred dollar benefit through this program which is incredibly meaningful for those middle income families that don't qualify for child care assistance. And then finally, better data. We want to better understand supply and demand. We wanna look at that methodology, we wanna make sure we're not overstating supply, we're not uh missing some of the differences that families have in terms of what their choices are and what their interests are with child care. And we want to create that methodology because we know it's important to identify what areas of the state have some of the biggest constraints. And lastly, I'd like to just say that we appreciate the flexibility that we have to innovate in Kentucky we thank you for your work on CCDF on the Child Care Development Fund, expanding the employer provided child care tax credit. Uh thank you again so much for allowing me to be here today to speak about Kentucky and I look forward to the conversation.

Thank you very much. I'll next recogni next r recognize Ms. Melnyk for your testimony.

Chair Kiley, Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to participate in this hearing today. My name is Hannah Melnyk. I'm Director of Early Learning Policy at the Learning Policy Institute, which conducts independent, high-quality research to improve education policy and practice. Um, I'm also, uh, glad to be here today because it's a personal matter for me as the parent of two young children. Today I'll discuss the importance of early care and education, by which I mean any setting in which a child receives care prior to kindergarten entry um as well as barriers state innovations and a path forward. The children's early years are in a crucial time for their learning and development. Well-designed and well-implemented programs can foster meaningful developmental gains that have the benefits of setting children up for success in school and life. Rigorous evaluations show a high return on investment. For families, however, we know that the cost of child quality child care is often out of reach. Costs have far outpaced groceries and housing, and as a result, more than one in ten parents of young children has been forced to either reduce their hours or leave the workforce altogether. Child care challenges, reduced productivity, and result in lost earnings, which cost the U. S. an estimated one hundred seventy-two billion dollars annually. The federal government plays a very important role in making high quality child care in early care and education accessible, particularly through the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start, and the preschool development grants. However, total fi- program funding is too low to serve all children. For example, just eleven percent of eligible infants and toddlers participate in our early Head Start and sixteen percent of eligible children benefit from a child care subsidy. What is more, child care providers are paid very low rates and get little professional support. In fact, we pay our educators so little that forty-three percent rely on uh public assistance and one in five is food insecure. Federal actions have made it even harder to run a quality program recently. In the past year, federal government has delayed Head Start funding and threatened to freeze child care funds leading to service delays and staff turnover. Despite this challenging backdrop, states are leading. Two states, Vermont and New Mexico, have made child care universal recently, New Mexico using its oil and gas revenues, and Vermont implemented a payroll tax passed with the backing of its lo local business. In terms of quality innovations, Alabama has made instructional coaching a r- evidence-based strategy, a priority for its infant and toddler teachers who often get very little support. And Virginia and North Carolina have helped to show that raising educator compensation even by a small amount can have a big effect on the workforce. And Virginia's incentive program, for example, cut turnover by half. However, these states' work is not a substitute for federal investments. The quality initiatives in Alabama and North Carolina, for example, reach only a fraction of providers, and most states do not have New Mexico's natural resource wealth. Federal policymakers should therefore m- take the following steps to increase access to early care and education that meets all family and children's needs. First, Congress should increase federal funding for existing programs, such that no family has to pay more than seven percent of their income to get the care they need. Second, Congress should maintain an increased quality across federally funded programs, setting a higher threshold for programs that receive funding from the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and maintaining Head Start's current evidence-based standards, which the administration has proposed repealing. And third, Congress should provide adequate funding for federal programs to cover the true cost of quality care including better compensation for educators. Thank you for this opportunity to testify and I welcome your questions.

Thank you very much. And lastly, I'll recognize Ms. White for your testimony.

Good morning, Chairman Kiley, Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about Child Care Innovations in Tennessee. I am Jude White, the Assistant Commissioner for Child Care and Community Services at the Tennessee Department of Human Services. At TDHS we understand the vital importance of healthy, safe, and developmentally rich child care and its impact on our communities. We know that access to quality child care is critical for parents to fully participate in the workforce. I'm incredibly proud to represent the coalition of Tennesseans who have contributed their time, expertise, creativity, and private investments toward growing sustainability and accessibility of child care in Tennessee. As responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, we are continuously working to collaborate and leverage resources to maximize impact. In Tennessee, we have worked over the past decade to modernize our child care regulatory landscape. We modernized our technology with system changes that decreased the administrative burden for parents providers in our community. Alongside our technology improvements, We changed our program sta- program and staffing structure, completely redesigning our quality rating improvement system to support our goals of continuous improvement for providers and improving transparency for parents. We worked with providers to rewrite our regulations to first protect children, but also to remove red tape. For example, we have worked with our state fire marshal's office to streamline inspections and we're working with a number of localities to address codes and zoning limitations. One of the most substantial results of our program and staff restructuring was launch of our pre-licensure unit in twenty twenty one. This unit helps potential child care providers navigate the licensing process. We meet providers where they are and help them build capacity to support their community. We know one size doesn't fit all. The pre-licensure unit is a group of solution-oriented, problem-solving individuals and I'm proud of their innovative ideas and the relationships they've built across the state. Newly licensed child care agencies consistently tell us how supported they have felt navigating the steps toward licensure and reaching their goal to provide quality care for children. Once the pre-licensure process is complete, our team then does a warm handoff to our licensing consultants who support continued compliance. Over the last five years, the pre-licensure unit has opened over forty-four thousand child care slots across the state, and they're still going. Another duty of our pre-licensure unit is to engage Tennessee employers to invest in their workforce through innovative child care strategies. In Tennessee, we've been actively partnering with businesses to grow child care capacity since twenty eighteen. We are grateful to our state legislature for allocating forty-five million in a three-year pilot to establish or make improvements to child care including new construction. We've supported the banking industry, the hospital industry, local school districts, and even the D- US Department of Energy by granting funds for private employers and child care agencies to partner to create sustainable child care facilities. We also recognize in Tennessee that child care workers are the backbone of this industry. We are lucky that Tennessee has been on the front lines participating in the nationally recognized wages program since twenty nineteen. This program offers a salary supplement to child care workers who commit to professional development, and stability of their employment. We are also proud that TDHS and the Lee administration led the charge to invest an additional seven million of state dollars to raise the eligibility of workers able to receive the salary supplement. With this program, we have proven lower turnover rates, cutting administrative burden for providers, and promoting continuity of care for kids. We are also very proud that TDHS received an additional five million state dollars invested in Smart Steps, our certificate subsidy program. This program is wonderful, but we did not want to penalize families when something good happens, a promotion, a marriage, a pay increase. Without this investment, families would be required to lose their child care payment assistance when they crossed the eighty-fifth percentile of state median income. Instead, now we're not penalizing those families but are actually encouraging people to grow their capacity and reduce dependency. Government cannot do this alone, but government can help by promoting innovative strategies that allow public and private dollars to be spent in the most impactful way. We are using our data, our experience, and our partnerships to ensure that we're investing in policies that are promoting long-term sustainable child care, that meets the needs of Tennessee families and employers. Thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you very much. Under committee rule nine, we will now question witnesses under the five-minute rule,

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to the panel, to This morning I heard about the affordability and that we need to make child care affordable for working families. Also heard your statements talking about child care keeps Americans working, that access to affordable quality care means working parents can participate in the economy. Your testimonies also talked about federal policies needs to support families, and Washington can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. We need to innovate and tailor support to where they're needed most. And finally, the federal policies should not be a one-size-fits-all approach to problems that occur nationwide. The challenges that families in my district Guam face are not the same or the exact as the families in California all the way to Florida. So child care solutions cannot be dictated top-down. Why the federal government? Families know better than the federal government what care works best for them. That's why it's important that we empower rather than restrict states and territories to find sustainable solutions like you all been telling us. So, Ms. Shanks, in your testimony you mentioned how the chamber made addressing child care challenges a key issue, which I'm glad to hear. I really support our general Guam Chamber of Commerce as well.

Great.

Can you elaborate more on how public-private partnership and flexibility have led to better outcomes for families? And second, what are you seeing in terms of cost reduction?

Thank you for that question. I think that's a really important topic that we discussed today in terms of flexibility and choice. Um, that is something that is important to Kentuckians and it's been important to our our policymakers that have worked in this space. Um, in terms of the different types of child care facilities that are provided in Kentucky we of course are a rural rural state we have many rural areas of our state. Um, certified family child care homes are a very important part of our child care network. We have around two hundred of them across the state. We have a strong network that supports them. And we're very focused when we work on programming or new policy design that we are incorporating them into that process. And so of course they can take advantage of various programs through the CCDBG program. Um, our child care, uh, track, tri-share model, the employee child care assistance program absolutely is available to our certified family child care homes. Um, and as we continue to work on the quality rating system in Kentucky, we're gonna be focusing on making sure that that particular voice is at the table and that we can provide um reforms and provisions that are applicable to them. So that's very important. The micro-center piece is also very important because that is something that can very much fill a gap between what we have today. which are the smaller family child care homes and what we can expect to um have in the future with these micro centers and so they get a little bit different of a um uh regulatory framework as as appropriate because they're smaller um and so we are gonna be working on licensing those and so the flexibility that we have as a state to develop that because we do have third shift that might benefit from that type of facility we do have rural areas of the state that might benefit I think it's really important in terms of the economy As we work on this issue, we're the Chamber of Commerce, so we love to talk about the economy. We will talk about jobs, absolutely. But we also wanna talk about the workforce and making sure that we have the workers to fill the jobs. And that's why we focus on this particular issue. If we can get upwards of sixteen thousand to twenty-eight thousand Kentuckians back in the workforce by reducing the cost of child care we're looking at a six hundred million to billion dollar economic investment in our state through wages, revenue, and other means. This is significant and it would bring Kentucky up out of the bottom ten of states on workforce participation. This is a very stubborn problem that we have in our state. And so we continue to work on it, and so we do believe that it is meaningful to do that. Our tri-share program, we're seeing an average of around um two hundred and fifty dollars is what employers are providing per month the state's matching it around two hundred. And so we can see a meaningful benefit to those working families to help them and help more people get back in the workforce.

Uh, thank you. Just a couple seconds more here. Uh, so what can the federal government do more effectively effectively in support of what you just stated?

I think the important thing is flexibility, absolutely. So as you continue to look at the CCDBG program, as you look at things like the employer provided tax credit, and expanding that recently was important. Providing employers or providing states' flexibility, well, and employers' flexibility to participate as a partner is going to be very important. Um, not all states are the same. And so I think we have to make sure that we're allowing for states to maximize, uh, based on their strengths, and a program that's flexible is key.

Wonderful. Thank you to the panel for your presentations and look forward to working closely with you to help our territorial Guam as well. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Uh, Ranking Member Bonamici of Oregon is recognized.

Ah, thank you, Mister Chairman. Thank you all for your testimony. It's really encouraging to hear about what you're doing in your states and we've heard about some pretty creative state innovations. And they're important. States should continue to implement programs that strengthen the child care system, but the innovations are not uh a substitute for federal investment. Improving access to quality, affordable child care is an economic priority for our country. Yet federal funding freezes and other funding interruptions have been delaying uh resources from reaching families, children, and providers. Many of us served in state legislatures and we know that states balance their budgets, and many not just blue states, are already facing cuts. So I want to ask you, Miss Melnyk, first of all, thank you for clearly laying out steps that we can be doing. Will you focus on the importance of federal investments in helping states innovate and provide child accessible child care?

Of course. Thank you for the question. Um, so the federal government has a very important role to play in working with states to expand access. States are making a lot of headway, particularly for access for four-year-olds in preschool, But when it comes to children birth through age three, really no state has it figured out. And that is why our programs like Head Start and CCDF are so vital. Um, the Child Care Development Block Grant, as I mentioned, reaches only sixteen percent of eligible children. And so, again, the most impactful role would for the Congress would be to increase the overall level of funding for these programs. I think it's particularly important not just that it's to increase access for all children, but to increase the level of funding that programs and providers receive so they can pay their their staff a living wage and make sure that children get the quality care they need because it's so important for their learning and development as well as for families.

Thank you. And these are policy choices. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to insert for the record I a letter I led to increase funding for the Child Care Development Block Grant program uh to at least three point five billion dollars in fiscal year twenty seven.

Uh without objection.

Uh thank you, and again, these are all policy choices. This Congress uh uh at the beginning of the Congress gave a hundred and seventy billion dollars to ICE and then the uh Department of Homeland Security and then later gave an additional seventy billion with the B dollars uh to the Department of Homeland Security for ICE uh rather than continuing to traumatize a generation of children uh I have introduced the Day Care Not Detentions Act to use that additional seventy billion dollars uh to help children and families. Uh this would nearly triple the CCDBG, double funding for child care entitlement to states, Head Start, and the preschool development block grant. That would do all of that by taking that additional seventy billion dollars in investing in our communities uh and they'll be safer and stronger with that generational uh investment in our youngest learning uh learners. Um also at the the f- I know the focus of this hearing isn't Head Start but Ms. You mentioned uh Head Start and I'd be remiss if I did not bring up uh the Trump administration's proposed changes to that critical program. It's my understanding even the chairman has expressed some concern about this. We are hearing concern across the country. The draft rule would, as civil rights and disability groups are describing, dismantle the program from the inside out. Among other things, the proposal would undermine Head Start's quality standards for education, strip away requirements designed to get children to meet critical benchmarks, decrease parental engagement and make it harder for English language learners to uh participate. Last week I met with providers and families in Oregon who are very concerned about this proposed rule. One mother said, " I don't know where we would have gotten support anywhere else." And a provider said, " Thinking about having less support feels untenable." Miss Melnyk, you mentioned this in your testimony. What concerns do you have with the proposed rule, and how would the rule change Head Start programs and affect children and families?

So this the Head Start rule would rescind about ninety percent of the current Head Start pro program performance standards that are the regulations that ensure consistent and quality services and if finalized it really could have a very detrimental effect on Head Start's um service provision. For example, the rule would rescind regulations related to program hours, HHS projects that this will lead to many hour fewer hours of uh in days of service, so that means less learning time for children, and less care for families. It would also reduce Head Start's class or change uh Head Start's class size and ratio requirements which are in place to ensure that children get those high quality interactions that they need with their uh caring adults. And in their own analysis, HHS says this would lead to larger class sizes for Head Starts and fewer teachers, both of which are associated with lower quality for children.

Uh thank you. I also heard a lot of concern about children with disabilities and Head Start has done a phenomenal job uh helping those kids. We heard a story about a girl who was struggling cuz she couldn't hear. They didn't know that and they helped her get hearing aids and now she's thriving. So uh I'm out of time. I yield back. Thank you.

I'll now uh recognize my myself for five minutes. I wanna thank all the witnesses uh for your uh outstanding testimony. And I think uh you know, talking to families in my district across California, the cost of child care has just become more and more of an issue when you pile it on top of the cost of living when it comes to groceries and uh gas and energy uh and housing uh and everything else and we have some of the highest child care costs uh in the entire country and so uh we've sort of identified a couple sets of solutions so far today one of which is you know focused on increasing supply through developing the workforce through providing uh paying providers more uh through giving them uh child care coverage uh a hundred percent of them uh through uh allowing for greater flexibility uh with things like micro centers um you know rolling back uh needless regulations uh adopting zoning and licensing requirements funding new facilities all of that serves to increase uh demand and then on the or supply and then on the demand side uh of course there's the block grant and other uh supplemental programs at the state and local level that uh try to give families greater purchasing power uh but then you also have this question of how do you connect families with the service that's best for them and so i'm really intrigued uh ms page by uh your uh Child Care Connect program uh because if this functions to sort of let a family know about an option that let's say is closer to them and is more affordable then in a way that's just as good as giving them uh you know a a higher voucher, so how does that work?

Um yeah Iowa Child Care Connect C three is about one of the uh most favorite things that I can talk about we are very proud of it, it's a game changer for our parents who are looking for child care that meets their needs. Um, we also have data dashboards that support our communities and our child care providers in understanding supply and demand information. Um, there's license capacity, operational capacity. We link that with vital statistic birth records, all within a system to make better data-driven outcomes. Our, uh, families are able to see this, um, in r- near real time, so we have multiple data sources that are feeding the system. And what they're able to do is see uh something that meets their needs, it doesn't meet the age of my child, the type of child care, the quality of child care, does it take subsidy or not take subsidy. And it's practically a built-in marketing tool for our child care facilities as well, because when you get it on the map, if they're a green, they're you're gonna see they meet the needs that I'm looking for. If they're red, they don't meet those needs. Um and therefore, providers want to keep that information up and current and available for families, so that they're showing that they have accessibility and availability. We're also able to evaluate the area market um for current needs, future needs at the state and the local level.

Yeah, that'd be fantastic if every family, every community had access to to something like that. I think it's a really great model. Uh, I did want to address the the issue of Head Start, uh, because I think protecting Head Start is is vitally important and, uh, I don't want to get into the specifics of this particular rule other than to say that I think major changes to the program really should be led by Congress. Uh, but uh, Ms. Melit, could you just uh talk a little bit more on a higher level about the importance of Head Start uh both from the perspective of child care as we're talking about today, but also in terms of uh early childhood development, uh educational equity, and so forth.

Of course, happy to. So Head Start, along with other high quality early childhood programs, have been shown to have really important benefits for children and for society. So in the long run they, well they do support children's academic success in school, but in the long run they also support impor- uh things like health ben- their well-being and health have they have higher earnings um lower crime rates, lower teen pregnancy rates so it can have a really lasting impact on the children as well as the families that they're serving. Um and I think that the quality of those programs is critically important and that's why it's really important that we continue to

Thank you very much,

Thank you.

and I'll look forward to working with the ranking member to uh to protect this program and assure that it works uh to the benefit as many kids uh across the country as possible. And then finally uh, Ms. uh Shanks, um you know we uh in prior hearings have have kind of gotten into the numbers specifically of of the cost of child care and how it's continued to increase. Um, Are there any, I mean you m- probably have uh some centers that are chamber members maybe, uh are there any drivers of these costs that maybe uh we haven't discussed that uh might be worth looking at and that could be addressed through policy?

Oh, I think so for sure. I mean, if you've talked about labor issues, I mean it's a very labor intensive service, you it's that that it's important for caring for children. Um we work on a program where we provide free child care assistance for child care workers. As I mentioned, we had fifty-three hundred participate in that huge impact for working families and all of the kids that they serve um i think there's always opportunities to look at red tape and look at regulations where there might be opportunities to streamline and create some um um changes that can be important reforms i also think that the piece at the local level is important if there are land use rules that are prohibiting new child care facilities from opening uh maybe it's a family child care home maybe it's a larger facility Perhaps it's inadvertent that those regulations are on the books. I think that's an important piece to look at because we have found specifically in Jefferson County and Louisville, Louisville area, they were able to do that. They spent some time studying that issue, working with stakeholders and clarifying how family child care homes can exist in residential areas, clarifying um issues around where they exist in commercial areas as well as industrial and so I think other communities in Kentucky for can learn from that, and that can help drive down costs um for these facilities

Thanks very much. Uh, Ms. Leah Pennsylvania is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. State and local governments are working hard to address the child care crisis, but if state-led innovations were sufficient, we wouldn't be in a child care crisis. The federal government can and it must uh intervene. And we know it's possible because we've done it before. During World War Two, Congress used defense funding to build child care centers in more than six hundred communities across the US. Of course, we were willing to make those uh investments when it was for women to fill factory jobs uh during a war. But in nineteen sixty-four, Head Start was founded to address poverty by supporting early education, health, nutrition, and social uh emotional development. But it is uh an important and successful program, so of course Trump is now gutting it. And let's not forget, when Congress actually did pass a bipartisan bill for a multi-billion dollar national child care system in nineteen seventy-one, only for Nixon to veto it because of a conservative disinformation campaign saying that the bill was a communist plot to destroy the nuclear family. Attacks on child care and a lack of federal investment have had lasting consequences for children and families across our country. Now states are also facing historic cuts to federal programs like Medicaid and SNAP which are going to compound the affordability crises that people are facing, that everyday working families are facing in our country. I regularly hear from people in my district in Pennsylvania about what is gonna happen uh to things like child care when these states are going to have massive shortfalls to address and I'm wondering if people from your states uh share those same concerns. Um Miss White, Tennessee faced a forty-four point five million dollar cut to its child care and development fund. uh which resulted in cuts to the program. Your testimony also mentions the importance of state level investments, like the forty five million dollar pallet program to expand employer sponsored uh child care. Given these uh CCDF cuts and Tennessee's reliance on state level investments, how do you all uh imagine that you will that the state budget shortfall uh due to federal cuts will impact child care in your state?

Yes, thank you so much for that question and um That has been a very challenging experience for us in the state of Tennessee. It uh was a reduction of our Child Care Development Fund discretionary award by about forty-four and a half million, as you said, um which we learned about towards the end of the federal fiscal year, twenty twenty five. So it did require us to make some fairly immediate decisions, difficult choices. Um we did implement a wait list for um families to enroll in our Smart Steps child care payment assistance program.

Mm.

We had to shift some of our um quality contracts for some of the supports we give providers. Um and as as challenging as as that is, and of course there's there's one bucket of the child care development fund that has to be distributed across the states according to a particular formula, uh as challenging as all that has been, we really tried to see this as an opportunity to step

Mm.

back and perhaps rethink some of our approach. And so we have uh rethought and retooled how we um provide professional development supports uh to the workforce um we are continuously evaluating our market rates and our subsidy rates um as well as leaning into uh the private investment um and support from employers recognizing that ccdf is one piece and if we are um declining there then what what can we lift up in other spaces

Yeah.

Thank you so much for for that answer. Uh Miss uh Melnyk, uh could you quickly or briefly speak to how funding cuts from Republicans so-called one big beautiful bill in this administration's attacks on child care already impacting state's ability to invest in child care, and what the future impacts might be?

Of course. So we know that families and child care providers are both reliant upon some of the s- federal supports that are being cut so this is also going to impact our teacher workforce we have twenty-three percent of our child care providers who are dependent upon medicaid because they don't get employer sponsored health insurance so this could help could actually push some of those staff over the edge and make sure keep them from serving the children that we need in child in child care um it's also having an important effect on many states which were already in a tough place with the end of pandemic era funding for child care and making cuts there so this will put an even greater burden on them and make them have to make top decisions about child care funds.

Thank you. And and I just wanna say that this should not be a partisan issue, but I will say that the three witnesses we have here today are in trump voting states, which means that they're less likely to see what we saw in January, when the administration tried to freeze ten billion dollars in child care and other social service funding to democratic-led states. But the moral of the story is that we have a child care crisis everywhere, and there are things that our federal government can do. We can start by passing the Child Care for Working Families Act, the Head Start for America's Children Act, any number of democratic proposals that expand federal investments instead of further cutting off families' access. I thank you all so much for your time and for your testimony, and I yield back.

Representative Harris of North Carolina is recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to all of you on the panel today for your testimonies. I appreciated not only what you shared here, but your written testimony that you had submitted beforehand. It's obvious if there's one issue that reaches across the country and impacts millions of American families it is child care. Child care supports parents' ability to work, strengthens economic security for families in the country, and helps provide businesses with a reliable workforce across America. Nationwide, I understand there's about fourteen point eight million children under age five that may need child care. And when you broaden that lens out to children thirteen and under, it's nearly fifty-five million children that may need care during traditional and nontraditional work hours. Now, one way to address the child care needs that exist is through innovation and partnerships, and we've heard some of you share about that today. And Ms. Page, I wanna just talk for a few moments about Iowa's Child Care Solutions Fund that has relied on private contributions from businesses, residents, and non-profit organizations. These funds focus on employee retention and compensation. My question to you is how is Iowa able to convince these various partners to participate and what specific programs have strengthened child care workforce retention in your state?

Thank you for that question. Um, the Child Care Solutions Fund was a time-limited nine-month opportunity with targeted communities who had already been working to stand up this effort. Um, we had one Iowa community that had been doing this for several years, and we wanted to capitalize on that success of the model in other areas. So what Iowa, um, and HHS did is um we were able to secure a two to one dollar match for those communities. We don't wanna take credit at all for the funds that those local communities were able to raise. That was their own innovation um and secure um securing from private contributions, but we incentivized that engagement with that matching for secured donations. Um these projects proved highly su- successful, most if not all of them are maintaining at the local funding model. Um it's important to note however that communities will always have competing priorities um we all need to be collaborative partners and we um acknowledge that in all areas there remain to be limited resources. Um in addition to the solutions fund we are specifically working on improving administration of child care businesses, child care management systems, partnering with the use of financial management coaches, improving business practices, and supporting uh sustainable business models. We've contracted for Iowa-specific business fundamental training for our facilities. Lastly, um, we highly invest in teach and wages as well to support increasing educational credentialing, providing wage stipend to support the increase in education, supporting the workforce infrastructure, improving the sustainability of programs, and improving consistency for children and families.

Well, in your testimony that you submitted beforehand, and you just noted again, uh, you mentioned that most

I would like to say that there is a secret answer. I would like to say that there is a secret answer. But really it was about our communities coming together and h- and coming up with solutions and the state being able to come in and support that effort. So we need to focus on our local communities and driving what they indicate is necessary for their local communities. What is needed in Des Moines is not going to be the same as a rural community in Iowa. And so when we're able to listen to the boots on the ground, the people that are saying what is necessary, we're gonna come in and support that in the best way possible, time-limited investments, um, potentially, you know, offering those opportunities statewide when there's funding to support that. Otherwise, we're gonna take - we're gonna take their lead and we're gonna support that work.

Thank you. Thank you so much. With that, I'll yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Representative Adams of North Carolina is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and - and thank you all for your, uh, for your testimony and for Being here today, there's been a lot of discussion about what states are doing on child care. And that's important. But states cannot solve this problem alone. And many of the problems that we're hearing about today still rely on federal funding and support. So if we wanna expand access, keep providers open, and support the child care workforce, the federal government still has a role to play. Miss Melnyk, in my district of Charlotte, North Carolina, Sixty-one percent of young children live in a child care desert. Now that means for a lot of parents, even if they can afford child care, there simply may not be a license provider nearby uh with an open slot. There's a lot of talk here about let's highlight what states are doing in the child care space. Your note in your testimony also says this is a national problem, especially when nearly forty-six percent of children live in areas where licensed care is unavailable, or there are more than three children for every available slot, or working mother or father who just needs somewhere safe and reliable for their child while they go to work, what does living in a child care desert actually mean day to day, and what can Congress do to help states create more child care options without lowering the quality of care?

Thank you for that question. So I completely agree, parents need to have both the ability to afford quality care and they need to have a supply of quality child care options in their area that they trust for their child and for so many families that is simply not the case we don't have the supply even when families can afford it and that's partly because it's a broken market um even as parents pay as much or more than they can afford providers can barely their doors open. Um, and that's why federal funds for programs like Head Start and CCDF are so important. Head Start fills a vital gap in especially in rural areas and in child care deserts where it is often the only option available and when we add funds though to voucher programs like CCDF we see that it will in some cases increase supply but what we really need to do is make sure that the amount of funding that is given to providers when we're funding them is sufficient for them to really be able to have a thriving business.

O- O K, so, so, Miss Melnyk, we can build all the child care centers we want, but they cannot stay if they can't stay, but they cannot stay open if there's nobody there uh to care for the children. And you point out that child care educators are paid very little. In fact, many rely on programs like SNAP and Medicaid just to make ends meet. You also highlight North Carolina's wages uh program, which provide salary supplements to child care educators and has helped reduce um turn over at these sites. So what have states like North Carolina taught us about keeping good child care workers in the classroom? And where does the federal government need to step in so the states can actually take these programs to scale?

Absolutely. So North Carolina's wages program does two things. It both increases wages for staff once they've been retained in the classroom, and it helps them to improve their level of education and their preparation. I think it shows that early educators really want to increase their qualifications. They really want to do this job, but they need s- more support to be able to stay in the job that they love.

OK, and Miss Melny, in your testimony you mentioned the recession of of of the Biden era re- regulations capping child care co-payments. for low income families. So how will this deregulation affect working families' access to child care? And do you think that this deregulation might affect individual states' capacity to invest in innovative solutions to the child care crisis?

I think it's very clear that states are dependent on federal funds to be able to innovate. The preschool development grants have shown us that, pandemic era funds have shown us that, that when some of the states have come up with the most innovative solutions like in California also having the opportunity to create things like Iowa's website that helps you find care, that's because of the additional funds that gives them that opportunity.

Mm-hmm. You know, some states have taken steps to ensure that parents of young children with disabilities have robust child care options and their providers have the training and resources they need to provide appropriate care for children. Uh, so can you talk just briefly about some of the policies that states have implemented?

The best thing that we can do to support our children with disabilities to in is to intervene early, but I think it's very clear from the research that very too few children have the access to care when they're um in their bur- birth to age three and that's one of the things we really need to make sure we're supporting at the federal level.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony. I'm out of time. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Chairman Wahlberg of Michigan is recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chair, and thanks to the panel for being here on an important issue. Um. Uh, my first question is for the uh state witnesses, Miss Paige Shanks and White. Uh, a strength of CCDBG is the flexibility that it provides and flexibility that it doesn't come easily in many cases, especially wide-ranging as child care. Uh, but it's necessary. Gives parents the option of choosing the type of care that's right for their family. And so how has your state found ways to support a variety of provider types through the various innovative solutions? Uh, Ms. Page?

Absolutely. We're really focused on parent choice and flexible options for families. I was licensed and regulatory child care landscape, um, which then includes the use of the child care and development fund subsidy, supports parents that may choose licensed child care centers. That includes before and after school programming, faith-based programs. um, and preschools as well as family child care homes that can include relative providers. We not only want to recruit new programs, uh, particularly home child care providers, but also retain those that already exist. So we are looking at pragmatic solutions, regulatory reform, uh, including making it easier and less onerous for - for relatives to provide care to family members,

Mm.

uh, which can support parent choice and who Iowa's families leave their children with, um. while they're working or furthering their education.

Yeah, great, great, great ideas. Ms. Shanks.

Thank you for that question and and I've spoken about our work with family child care homes or micro centers but I wanna mention another type of child care facility that we're seeing more of and I think we could see more of because of the new tax credit that was been or the tax credit that's been expanded we have a wonderful medical center a Pikeville medical center in Pike County Kentucky so far eastern Kentucky, that has uh started a child care center. and they are expanding it. They've purchased an old um grocery store building, they've hired an architect, they are renovating it, and they are expanding the services that they already provide. And so this is a hospital that is recruiting health care workers,

Hmm.

doctors, nurses in a part of the state where that health care is critical. If you're going to travel from eastern Kentucky to another part of the state to get health care, you know, that that could be quite a drive, um and that can that can be problematic for some families in terms of access to care. And so the fact that they're taking these steps is so important. And so as we continue to look at programming at the federal, state, local level, we need to remember that there are employers that are gonna roll up their sleeves, that are in communities where maybe there is a lack of child care and they're gonna go build it. And I think that that's a really important piece of the puzzle, because they're not just going to provide that for their workers, but they're going to provide it for others in the community. Not all employers can do that or have that kind of workforce. That's where the employee child care assistance program comes into play, our tri-share model. We've got great businesses participating in that, CVG Airport up in northern Kentucky. You may have flown into that airport. They participate. Planners Bank in Hopkinsville also participates, and we have several others. And so as we continue to work on policy at the state level, we will be focused on flexibility so that we can allow those businesses to play those important partnership roles.

And your story talks about economic development across the board, as well as thanks for mentioning the benefit of the new child tax credit uh advantage that was expanded. So thank you. Uh, Miss White.

Yes, thanks, thanks so much for the question. And so as Miss Shanks was saying, that employer partnership in um developing child care resources for their workforce is critically important. Uh, as we uh administer our employer partnership grants using state dollars in Tennessee, one of the criteria we look at when we're reviewing proposals is whether or not they've engaged their work. workforce to understand what those families want and need in addition to whatever the um employer's needs are in terms of their uh shift schedule and so as Miss Shanks was saying, it could be an employer who chooses to build child care from the ground up and they can control the shifts that they offer and um they can control even the wages of the staff who work there that's one model other employers may choose to find an existing child care agency and partner with them to reserve some slots for their employee workforce. It really all depends on what that employer's workforce is telling them that they want. Uh, we do in Tennessee offer uh a family child care network, so through our child care resource and referral program, we do want those family child care providers to be available. Some parents may choose that they want their child to be with the same caregiver from infancy up through school age. Other parents may say they want a larger center where their child can have various age groupings and progress uh through the program. And so for all the programs, whether it's fi- family child care or a larger center, we offer technical assistance, coaching, uh and other interventions that help them grow their capacity and their quality.

It's amazing. Emphasis on meeting the needs of the family and the child and doing it in a positive way, creatively and flexibly. Thanks so much. Uh, I yield back.

Representative Grijalva of Arizona is recognized.

Thank you, good morning. Thank you to all the witnesses for being here. Um, this subcommittee meets today to address a crisis deeply felt by families all over the nation including in my home state of Arizona the severe sh- shortage of affordable quality health care cr- I'm s- health care is important too, child care. We're all gonna cover all the bases today. Um, when parents can't find care, they reduce their hours or leave the workforce, costing our national economy a hundred and twenty-two billion annually and Arizona's economy three point three billion each year. In Arizona, the child care supply has fallen forty-six percent since twenty- since two thousand and two, leaving nearly forty-nine thousand children under the age of five without a formal spot or space in care. Center-based infant care now costs nearly sixteen thousand dollars a year, while early childhood educators earn a median of twelve dollars and ninety-eight cents an hour, barely above the federal poverty level. We're asking workers to care for our children while paying them wages that make it difficult to support their own families. These are the workers on the front lines who identify developmental, learning, and health concerns early on to help our children grow to the full, their full potential by connecting families with support as early as possible. I, like many parents, would not have been able to work without high quality child care for my children. Parents need to know that our children are safe, are cared for, and are learning. I believe child care is early childhood education, and working families deserve access to care and education that they can trust for their children, care that supports their children's developmental um and developmental um process, and prepares them for success. New Mexico has pioneered universal child care, and we should recognize that the state, what that state has accomplished. Arizona has also demonstrated what state and local leadership are capable of doing to educate young children. In Pima County, the Pima Early Education Program scholarships, or PEEPS, bring together local, state, and federal and community resources to help income-eligible families access high-quality preschool. But providing this critical support comes with real costs, and possibly difficult trade-offs for budgets. States should lead where they can, but they cannot be expected to shoulder the burden of national child care crisis alone. We need durable federal partnerships that stabilize the workforce and lower costs for families. Child care and early childhood education are not money-making business endeavors, which is why federal investment is so important. So, I have a question. Um, child care workers in Arizona are leaving the industry largely due to critical low wages, as I already mentioned. From twenty eighteen to mid-twenty twenty, Arizona lost more than one thousand providers. Um, Miss Melnyk, based on your research, what are the most effective policy interventions to reduce turnover in the child care sector?

Thank you for that question. I think there are two major components to reducing turnover. The first, as you said, is increasing compensation. The median wage nationally is thirteen dollars an hour for a child care worker.

Mm-hmm.

That means educators are literally choosing between doing the important work that they love which is high stress or going to a fast food uh job

Mm-hmm.

where they can earn both higher wages and have significantly lower stress levels and it's not just wages but benefits. Um, again, twenty-three percent of early educators rely on Medicaid for their health insurance because they don't get it at work. But another big issue is working conditions. Child care workers get few breaks, they work long hours, and they have a very physically demanding job,

Mm-hmm.

and they do not get very much professional support in the very difficult, uh, work that they do, which is why we need to make sure we're also supporting the child care workers and the early educators with um quality professional development. All of these things cost money and the Congress can help provide adequate funding through the Child Care Development Fund and Head Start to make sure that both wages and professional supports are well funded.

Thank you. Early educators are predominantly women of color with twenty-two perc- and twenty-two percent are immigrant women. They are the backbone of our child care system. How do current anti-immigrant policies threaten to destabilize this already precarious workforce and raise child care costs.

So, as you said, twenty percent of the early childhood workforce is immigrant women. I think it's very clear that the workforce is under severe stress already, so we need to do whatever we can to make sure that we are supporting rather than destabilizing the industry.

Thank you. I yield back.

Mister Mesmer of Indiana is recognized.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you for the witnesses for being here today. And also, Mister Chairman, I wanna

Sorry about that. Um,

Yeah. Yeah.

Governor Reynolds issued executive order ten in early twenty twenty three, uh which required a review of all administrative rules to simplify, repeal and obsolete ineffective or excessively uh restrictive administrative rules. We have modified child care licensing rules and regulations to slightly enhance capacity through adult to child ratio of two and three year old children, specifically, namely where Iowa was identified as an outlier in comparison to some other states. We also made moderate changes in staffing eligibility for persons under the age of eighteen. We have found pragmatic solutions to ease regulatory burden on facilities operating in school buildings. I mentioned this before, um, namely before and after school programming, where they were being held to a higher regulatory standard for gymnasium or lunchroom after school care than they were during the school day. We focused on logical solutions, removing arbitrary barriers. We're currently focused on reducing state regulations for relative child care providers, as I mentioned, so that they meet the minimum regulatory requirements mandated under CCDBG, but not necessarily a higher burden at the state level. A grandmother watching her grandchild should not be subject to onerous regulations simply because she's accepting subsidy. Um, so I I will say that some of these, I can't definitively say that they have increased, um, our supply, but I'm confident that our collective efforts for recruitment, retention and sustainability with practical regulation, uh, increased and maintained our slots.

Okay, thank you. Uh, Miss Shanks, Kentucky is a fair fairly rural state, just like Indiana, where I come from. Uh, how has local zoning reform changed the traject trajectory of child care options, especially in the rural areas?

Definitely. That's an important issue for us, and we created the certified child care community program, which is, um, a set of resources, model ordinance, so that we can, um, encourage local governments to to make changes to their land use rules and ultimately become certified as a child care community, but I think it's the process that they go through that's most important, because they can identify ways that um they they are maybe inhibiting the the the development of new child care facilities um so this is an important area for us and we ultimately can imagine a scenario where we have communities in Kentucky that have achieved this status and where we can direct resources and programming to those communities so we're working hand in hand, so you have a local government that's doing their share rolling up their sleeves, addressing these particular problems, and then you have state provided programs as well as federal provided programs, that could be directed in those particular areas. You know, I work with an employer that's part of our Kentucky collaborative on child care, that is our our coalition of forty different members solving child care issues, and his involvement is a and it is that he is in a rural community, and they are a large manufacturer in a rural community, and they struggle with child care, and when they recruit people, Um, that's a challenge for them. And so you can envision a scenario where he might wanna participate as a stakeholder in that local community as they roll up their sleeves and become certified child care community they might be able to bring solutions to the table through those conversations and even participate through our employee child care assistance program um as well as is through the tax credit for on-site or near-site child care and so that's gonna create potentially those opportunities. Um, this is where we develop a lot of opportunity through our Kentucky Collaborative on Child Care. It's our coalition that is just where we get a lot of these great ideas and consensus-driven approaches. Um, it is a a project that is funded by an incredible organization, Lift a Life, Novak Family Foundation. I do wanna mention the importance of nonprofits and foundations in this space as well, uh, because this is where we can go to the collaborative, get help for these types of programs so that local governments can address these issues head-on especially in our more rural parts of the state.

Uh, follow-up question on the uh Pike County Hospital uh uh employees um center for, center for the workforce employees, is that open to other members of the community or or just to the work workforce itself?

Their plan is to open it up, and so you have a university, you have banks, so their plan is to do that ultimately, um but c- you can imagine when you're recruiting doctors and nurses, I'm happy to come to your hospital, do you have child care? That is an impor- that is a question they're getting, and that's exactly why they're doing this. So it can help the community beyond the hospital.

Okay. Thank you. I I yield yield excuse me, I yield back.

Mr. Mannion of New York is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Child care access and affordability are issues that continue to be top of mind for so many families including those that I represent uh as you all know States are at the forefront of addressing these challenges and working to improve policies of their own. Um, I appreciate the models that have been shared today and agree, it's helpful to look at what's working at the state level to see how federal investments can help. I served in the New York State Senate at a time when child care needs across the state, including in central New York, were significant. We were successful in rolling out programs to not only support existing providers expand, but also establish new centers in shortage shortage areas that were deemed in child care deserts and micro-deserts. This was a hundred million dollar grant program for expansion uh and allowed those providers to increase uh the number of staff that they had and therefore the number of families that they could serve. We also passed legislation to incentivize employers to offer, as was just stated, on-site child care to their employees. And we dramatically helped expand universal pre-K across the state of New York, including in upstate New York. That's what state leadership and true commitment to early childhood development looks like. My wife, who is uh d- spent many years screening kindergartners, saw the value of students that were enrolled in universal pre-K or programs like Head Start. I'm glad that the other states, uh, have also enacted similar efforts, but we must also acknowledge that federal programs play an important role here, and often help enable these innovations. Most notably, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, or CCDBG, actually provides the funding that states use to offer child care support directly to families and to invest in quality improvement. If we want to expand state-led child care initiatives, it's just as critical that we also strengthen bipartisan support for CCDBG. I also want to briefly talk about Head Start, another essential program that for decades has provided families with high-quality early childhood education. This administration is now proposing radical changes to Head Start that undermine quality and service standards, create needless confusion, and actually add more costs onto providers. I trust what I hear directly from the Head Start providers in my district and the families that I represent and they're worried that some of these changes would be destabilizing and put programs at risk. The vast majority of Americans and the vast majority of the people that I represent support Head Start and see child care as a critical part of the affordability crisis. So why, I ask, would we jeopardize the programs we know is working. So while I'm glad that we're looking at state-led solutions today, I just want to emphasize that they're not always inseparable from the choices made in Washington, which lately have been moving us in the wrong direction. My questions are for you, Miss Melnyk. Um, we've already touched upon several specific examples of states innovating to improve access, affordability, and quality of child care. So, how can the federal government better support these improvements and help scale these policies?

Thank you for the question. I think it's clear that for many of the state innovations that we have talked about, they have begun with federal funds. In infant and toddler care especially that is true because that is such a intensive, labor-intensive um work and it is expensive, and so For example, the work that I talked about in Alabama where the state is providing professional coaching instructional coaching for infant and toddler teachers, that work was uh made possible because of the preschool development grants that gave the state some time to think about quality. It also was a result of the early Head Start child care partnerships that brought a focus to how we can expand the quality of early Head Start to more child care providers. And similarly, the compensation initiatives that I mentioned in North Carolina and particularly in Virginia were s- uh jump-started with federal funds. And in Virginia, those pandemic-era funds are about to uh or have expired, and that's leaving the programs in jeopardy. So we need to continue to fund these uh opportunities where states can then take the lead.

Thank you, Miss Malek. I yield back.

Representative Owens of Utah is recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chair, and uh this is again a very, very important stay um uh conversation. Um, child care's a topic that uh is is is key right now to us and innovation from bottom up uh appears to be a solution that's working and I wanna kinda focus on that a little bit. Um, Miss Page, you mentioned uh Iowa's relationship with the business community uh and many of the innovative efforts you've had. What are some of the lessons learned by both the state and small business owners that you guys have actually um

Thank you for that. Um, you know, when we had COVID era funding, uh, through CARES, CARSA, and ARPA, the state took a lot of unique opportunities to try innovative, um, ideas that we hadn't tried before. And I think that's what we've heard was the benefit of some of those pandemic era era funds. One example is the business incentive grants, um, that was done in partnership with the Iowa workforce development. We used both state and federal, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. that is being championed by our child care resource and referral partners. They are fully funded by HHS and it builds on a previous contract that we had with the Iowa Women's Foundation that worked on business solutions and partnership supports at the local level. Um, for example, one regional area partner um partnered with the local chamber and they conducted a survey with businesses on commuting effort for employment, annual expenditures on workforce turnover and what expenses were related to the lack of access to child care in that community. They've engaged community members and businesses to learn about needs and capacity, using our Child Care Connect to understand the supply and demand data in the background. And so we really want to educate our businesses about the types of child care resources that are available to them and to their employees and then share data that helps them understand the complexity of the landscape of their workforce. Um, they can only build capacity for the workforce that they serve when they understand the data behind it.

Yep. Thank you. Miss Shanks, um earlier you mentioned uh the return on investment for businesses, and I think it's worth first of all repeating that cuz it is all about return on investment. And the other thing is other than venues like this, uh is there a best of practice sharing between states to understand what's what really works and and if they can kind of buy into that and move forward?

Absolutely, and I will reiterate that the economy is very important in that the work of um our child care policy work is very important to workforce participation which is important to the economy. Whenever I talk about um our work on jobs and policy in that regard, I always tell people you can have all the jobs, but if you don't have the people in them, you don't get economic growth. And we want Kentucky to achieve their economi- our economic potential. We want Kentuckians to achieve it as well. And so we spend just as much time working on the job side of the equation as we do on the uh workforce side of the equation, and and I think that that's really important. Um in terms of how states can share You know, we have some pretty informal networks. Uh, we have, um, great organizations that support our work, that bring people together. We're part of a fellowship, um, specifically in that regard. And we, it's a really, um, I think, close-knit group of people that work in the child care space. And I think the reason for that is that it's, it's a lot of work. And there's a lot of research that needs to go into it. You know, we're working on, for example, studying the methodology on supply and demand and making sure that we are not overstating supply. uh making sure that we better understand demand and we're seeing some things in other states that we can learn from that they were gonna we're gonna bring back to Kentucky and develop that methodology we worked with the Metro United way and found that um there's actually a a difference between license capacity and true capacity, almost thirty percent in the study that they did and so I think that there's a great opportunity here uh for us to work with each other because as we innovate, we learn. Our employee child care assistance program we've learned from other states uh we are now contracting that out to a third party um specifically to expand that program we've learned that from other states so there are some informal networks that we are a part of but any opportunity that we can come together and and and learn from each other I think is important.

Thank you um just when I had a real quick question I don't know if we have time but twenty like last twenty seconds um um the innovation of retaining child care workforce through wages and professional development how if you can briefly describe what you guys are doing in that area.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So, uh, since twenty nineteen we have made available the wages salary supplement program statewide. And that is a model that can be uh, you can obtain the license and provide that that resource in your state. And what it does is uh a member of the child care workforce will apply for this salary supplement. And their level of their supplement is based upon their level of professional and academic advancement so it encourages that continuous

Thank you so much. Now you're back.

Representative Hayes of Connecticut is recognized.

Thank you. Uh, thank you all for being here today. I am listening and I know very well what you are all speaking about today. I worked in a daycare for many years. I was the head teacher in the toddler two room. And I'm just thinking about that experience because in the state of Connecticut, I made a little bit more than our minimum wage at the time. But I did not have health care. I did not have any other benefits. And this was not babysitting. This was child development. It was assessment. It was preparation for school. It was identifying problems and targeting intervention. It was all of those things. And the saddest part of that whole experience, although I loved the work and it was the springboard that led me to pursue a career in teaching, was that while I was pouring into other people's children, my own children were being cared for by a patchwork of people in my community, by my grandmother, by friends, by relatives, in a very haphazard way. So they were not receiving the benefits of those things. Connecticut did have a program back then which I was able to access. It was called the Care for Kids program. However, even with a program like that, the voucher was not sufficient to pay for the cost of a high quality child care center like the one that I worked in. My weekly salary wouldn't even cover what it would have cost to enroll one of my children in that program. So I was limited to a home daycare or a community-based setting, which so many people And the fact that that has not changed is and should be the shame of our nation. When we talk about helping parents to be self-sufficient and not relying on government assistance, this is probably the best thing we could do, is to ensure that their children are safe, so that they can pursue a career, so that they can work and give back and invest in our communities. My question today builds on that program that we have called Care for Kids. It says, uh, partnership between state and federal. They use federal funding for this state-led initiative. And they use eligible eligible resources to help families afford child care by giving them a voucher you know families have to check in, there's lots of things. But um it's something that we absolutely can expand upon and grow so that I mean every decision about every job I ever took was based around making sure that my children were safe. And that hasn't changed, and we have the ability to do so much. And then I think on the other side, the other thing I'll add to that is, even as a high school teacher, I could identify the students who had early childhood interventions, because those skills grow and develop, and and follow them through the years. So, reaching our kids early, you know, doing, you know, social interaction and reading interventions and speech, uh, interventions, all of those things set our kids up for success. So it's not just babysitting. It is really the number one economic driver that we have. My question is for you, Miss Melnyk. In Connecticut, the Care for Kids program is an example of how federal CCDF resources can be used to help develop effective state-led solutions to helping support working families. What opportunities do you see for states to build upon these models? And how would additional federal investments allow states to

Absolutely. So I think what the state what states can do with federal dollars is to really expand access and just make it easier for parents to access the care. That they need instead of having to jump through hoop after hoop, which in many cases keeps families out by design because we have to ration limited resources. So what we're seeing in Vermont and New Mexico, as I mentioned, is that they are breaking down those eligibility barriers for families making child care universal, so that it's something you know you can depend on. Even when you change your job, you know your child can continue with their caregiver. You don't want to have to have the child leaving a place where they feel safe and comforted just because you have a job change or a temporary uh change in your life and that's when they might need it the most and so making sure that they can make to t- make programs as universally available as possible.

You just made me smile two times by saying universal child care and then doubling down on how important that universal care is because it is literally a step that we need to take, this committee needs to lead on to make sure that it is a part of any agenda moving forward because that's how we get our economy growing and with that I yield back.

Representative Thompson of Pennsylvania is recognized.

Uh thank you Chairman, thank you ladies for um bringing your experience and your passion for child care uh to this committee um I very much appreciate that. Um as I um I think you've done a great job of laying out just how important that is you know to the um to the family, to to uh intellectual development. Um as I work in my district on those issues, but on issues also like economic development and and uh uh workforce development, uh the two things that rise to the top almost in every conversation uh is uh child care and housing. You know, we have it's an exciting time, we have employers that are expanding new entrepreneurs, actually jobs are growing, uh but especially in rural areas like I represent, and I represent a third of the land mass of the state of Pennsylvania, a lot of our communities, we don't have the, we don't have the child care, um and the housing is a reoccurring theme as well. Um I will say for my colleagues here, if you, if this issue is important to you, I would hope you would support the reauthorization of the Community Services Block Grant, HR thirty-one thirty-one, uh that supports Head Start Uh, there's thirty-one co-sponsors at this point. Uh, this committee needs to, uh, be marking that bill up. Um, uh, it is long overdue. I think it last was reauthorized was in the nineties, I believe. Um, uh, Miss Page, what benefits did removing income limits for child care workers attain uh, that, uh, led your state to codify the child assistance program for the workforce pilot program into state law?

Yeah, so we started that as a pilot about three years ago. We wanted to make sure that we were gonna see the workforce recruitment retention that we thought we were going to see when we uh brought the child care assistance for the workforce program so that was codified into law, just this last legislative session. And we've served um at least twenty-four hundred people so far. That's twenty-four hundred people in the child care workforce that were not in the workforce before which is creating sustainability for our child care programs, as well. we really did see um that this was crucial for program stability, stability for children and families, and then that year-over-year retention as well of um the people that were eligible in the first year they continued to work in child care in the second year and they've continued to work in child care the third year. That's sustainability. And we had um child care providers, advocacy partners, and bipartisan support um at our legislative body, and it's good investment.

Very good, thank you. Uh, Ms. Shanks, uh, as you know, Kentucky was the first state uh to make all employees at licensed child care centers eligible for child care assistance regardless of income. How did this workforce incentive come to fruition, and what encouragement would you give to other states about this innovation?

It's definitely a popular program that we offer. It started in twenty twenty-two and it was codified in statute this year with the passage of House Bill six as I mentioned five thousand three hundred. Kentuckians took advantage of that last year, and so if you think about ratios in the classroom of four, five to twelve, that's a lot of families that you're impacting by serving those people, um, and it is a retention and a, uh, recruitment tool. It's very unique, um, to, to our child care services and it's very popular, and so it is something that we do recommend. I bel- I believe there's non-states that are participating in it, um, perhaps at different levels or conditions. Uh but I do think it's something important. Our general assembly has been very interested in it and in supporting it, and they appropriated around seventeen million dollars in support of it um here recently and so it's it's something that they're tracking closely to, and so we will continue to advocate for that.

Well congratulations to your state

Thank you.

uh for taking leadership with that. Uh Miss White, what measurable benefits has Tennessee seen from the Smart Steps Plus program which expands child care support to middle income workers?

Yes, thank you. We were delighted to follow the leadership of our governor's uh office about two years ago to uh get dedicated state dollars to provide the Smart Steps Plus program. And so that is a a program that's designed to address the fiscal cliff, which is something that is discussed often and that's the precarious situation that a family might be in if they are accessing public bene benefits and then see perhaps a a salary increase or a marriage that um then makes them ineligible and so then as they are getting back on their feet they're losing access to some of those resources and so the smart steps plus program is designed to provide payment assistance for those who have been on our smart steps program as they cross that eighty-fifth percentile of state median income uh to continue to provide that child care payment assistance so they can maintain uh their employment build that employment history and continue um to advance professionally.

Uh, well done. Thank you very much.

Ranking member Scott of Virginia is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Mr. Chairman, what we've heard is that workers aren't being paid enough and the cost to the parents is too high. Uh, unless we're concluding that the problem is that the daycare centers are charg- are are making too much money, uh, we have to deal with and and there's no evidence of that. Most of them are nonprofits anyway. Um, the only way we can solve that is obviously come up with a subsidy to try to increase the pay and reduce the price. Ms. Shanks, uh, can you discuss why adequate pay is important for quality education and retention of teachers?

Yes, thank you for that question. Quality is of course very important to us, it's very important to families. Um, and I would say in response to your question, we look at the programs that the federal government provides that you all work on here as being very much foundational and then we bring in the state's support through our advocacy at the state level um where we can provide the child care assistance program with state funds where we um insure up to eighty five percent of state median income families are eligible for child care assistance. Um and then of course the employee child care assistance program which is the trash air model, funding from the state as well and so uh we do have um different layers essentially of what we can bring to the particular problem around cost to help families with affordability and to help providers provide the workforce that they need so that they can fill those those positions. Um quality is key and you mentioned quality and we do have um some some plans to update our quality rating system in Kentucky it was part of our legislation that we passed earlier this year And then there could be some economic incentives, there are economic incentives, but there are some benefits to the providers as they reach those different levels of quality within our All-Stars program. And so there's a lot of things happening at the state level to support that.

Well, thank you. Thank you. Miss Melnick, we um uh are aware the Child Care and Development Block Grant uh covers um support for a lot of um eligible people, but only sixteen percent of those eligible, and that's those under eighty-five percent of the state median wage uh as a as a um as a maximum only sixteen percent of those get assistance a lot more actually need assistance but only sixteen percent of those eligible um if you add up all of the state incentives what um percentage of the need are we meeting and would uh just starting with expanding the c c d b g be an important first step

So I don't know the exact percentage because but I it's so clear that the need is extremely high and it is especially true for children birth through age five and infants and toddlers in particular I think it would be hard to argue that states would not very gladly accept more support so that they can both expand access but also expand the per child rate both are needed in order to make uh high quality early care and education more accessible.

And um education is an important component of quality child care. Um what can be done to insure that child care providers include quality education as part of their program?

I think we have so much more we can do to support the professionals who are caring for our children. They need instructional uh support in the the day-to-day work that they're doing so that job embedded uh professional development right now a lot of the professional development is on providers own time they have to leave their their business and pay for it out of their own pockets often attending trainings and nights and weekends so having state programs like often provided through quality grading and improvement systems where you have someone coming in to support a provider in their home and that's particularly important for being able to support children with disabilities who often have needs that providers uh really want to be able to support, but n- but they can't on their own.

Can you um in the final uh less than a minute say why Head Start is so important and why it should not be abolished?

Of course, Head Start plays an incredibly important role in our country in making sure that we are providing high quality early care and education to our youngest children who are most in need and the program is very clearly beneficial for children that with effects that last into school and later in life, and that's why we need to make sure that we're protecting this investment.

Representative McKenzie of Pennsylvania is recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by thanking each of our witnesses for the work you do in your state's and your commitment to child care programs. The Child Care Development Block Grant hasn't been reauthorized in over a decade. And according to the bipartisan Policy Center, this means four point two million children who have a potential need for care, have no formal slot within a reasonable drive from their home. It also means that there will be an estimated two hundred and sixteen billion dollars to t- three hundred twenty-nine billion dollars in lost earnings, productivity, and tax revenue over the next decade. And sixty percent of ser- caregivers are missing work, reducing their hours, or changing jobs, because they don't have access to care. To address this issue, I introduced the Child Care Modernization Act with a bipartisan group of my colleagues, and my bill would tie provider payment rates to the true tr- cost of care, create new supply and facility grants, and most importantly, give f- states the flexibility in how they manage their child care programs. It's clear through the witness testimony that a federal one-size-fits-all approach will not necessarily help the children and parents that we are looking to help. But in fact, this state approach, giving the block grants to the states, giving them the flexibility they need to implement the programs, would be the best path forward and the best approach. So, my question is for Ms. Page. I noticed in your testimony that you talked about Child Care Connect, and as I understand it, it's a tool that helps parents identify child care centers that fit their needs. As I mentioned, my bill, the Child Care Modernization Act would tie provider payment rates to the true cost of care could you talk about some of the benefits that you've seen Child Care Connect provide and how it could be uh an used as an estimate of cost of care in your state?

Absolutely. Um, so the first part about Iowa Child Care Connect is really going back to how this is supportive for families, right? So it's families are able to access available information near real-time availability of child care that meets their needs related to age location quality center versus home et cetera so that's the goal that we w- are meeting for families what we really want to talk about too is the data around supply and demand that we have for dashboards that are available to not only the state but local communities as well. And so when we're able to identify um licensed capacity of child facilities versus operational capacity versus um desired capacity. Those are three different numbers for our child care programs. And before we start investing in um in some of like facility grants or supply grants we wanna understand that data landscape first. So we want to understand that information, provide that information, so that we're fun using our funding appropriately. The other thing that we um obviously do as required by CCDBG is the market rate survey.

OK, fantastic, and I really agree with your position on uh understanding that supply and demand dynamic and understanding those We see that all the time in our local community. They say they're licensed to have so many students in their facility, but then there are impediments to actually meeting that number based on if they actually have the providers or other resources available to actually hit that licensed number. So thank you for that uh information. I'll go to Ms. White next. The goal of the Child Care Modernization Act is to give states flexibility in how they administer their child care programs. Like other states, Tennessee is comparing providers' actual enrollment versus desired enrollment, similar to what we were just talking about here. Uh, and so tell us how you view that difference in the data that you're seeing and how you can use it to to match uh child care needs.

Yep. Absolutely, thank you. So, we are focused on that data. Our licensing staff go out to our providers on a quarterly basis and get direct information about their actual en- enrollment versus the providers' desired en- enrollment which as you said is even different than their licensed. capacity and so to get a more true picture of the child care landscape in tennessee we want to collect and understand that data and then our pre-licensure unit uses that data as they're working with potential providers to help them think through whether or not the the area where they want to open might be saturated with a particular type of child care so they may want to think about the ages that they're serving or the hours that they're operating so they can insure that they will actually feel a need in their community. So that data is critical to understanding how best to invest our resources, so the providers that are opening are sustainable and that our existing providers have a financial model that allows them to survive.

Thank you again to all of our test fires. Again, this is the substantive uh discussion that we're looking for in the child care space and I I'm fully confident we can find bipartisan solutions to address the issue. I yield back, Mister Chairman.

Thanks very much. I'll now recognize uh Rekhima Rabhanamidhi for a closing statement.

Uh thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here, for your testimony, for your expertise, but also for uh emphasizing the importance of access to quality affordable child care. We certainly appreciate that. And today's hearing shows that many states are finding creative ways to expand access to child care and support child care providers We should learn from those successes, absolutely. But again, innovation cannot replace investment. Families still struggle to afford care. providers struggle to stay open, child care workers remain underpaid. We also heard that child care is not just a family issue, it's an economic issue. When parents cannot find or afford child care, they're forced to cut hours, turn down opportunities, or leave the workforce. And that hurts families, employers, and the economy. I also wanna make a point that both um uh Miss Shanks and Miss White mentioned, and that's about removing red tape. I'm all about finding smarter, better ways to do things. And it's why I encourage this committee and this Congress to take up and pass a bipartisan bill, I think mister, oh, mister McKenney's, m- mister McKenzie is still here, that we are cosponsoring the Early Childhood Nutrition and Improvement Act. The Child and Adult Care Food Program supports child care providers who serve healthy meals to millions of children across the country, but it needs to be updated and it needs to be simplified, and that's exactly what this bipartisan bill does. It reduces paperwork requirements, streamlines the program, and authorizes reimbursement for an additional meal or a snack to children who are in care for longer periods of time. So we could do that. It would make a difference because uh there are many providers who aren't using the program now because it's too complex and bureaucratic. So that's one thing we can do right away, so I'm encouraging the leadership to bring that up. I also um agree with Mister Thompson that we could modernize the commu- the community service block grant program. In Oregon and across the country, uh, community action agencies run oftentimes that are administer the early Head Start and Head Start programs they're doing important work with that program needs to be modernized as well. So we know that the federal government can make a significant difference for the people we represent and for the economy, by helping states build on what works. We saw during the pandemic that federal investment stabilized providers and kept care available for families, We can continue that progress and also promote strong uh accountability uh in these programs. That's important. But at the end of the day, we should not have to choose between innovation and investment. We need both. Today's children are tomorrow's leaders. The Child Care for Working Families Act would help mer- make care more affordable, expand access, and invest in the workforce. I hope we can work together to give states, providers, children, and families the support they need. Uh and I again, Mister Chairman, thank you and thank you to the witnesses. I look forward to continuing to work on this important issue, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Thanks very much and thank you to all our witnesses. Uh a point of consensus I think that's emerged from this hearing is that the child uh care development block grant uh should be reauthorized. We've heard that from Ranking Member Bonamici, we've heard it from Representative Thompson. Uh Representative McKenzie has a bicameral uh bipartisan bill to reauthorize and modernize the program. And so if House leadership is looking for something to do in September, uh, here's something that we can do that would really address the concerns of working families that would allow for these child care grants uh to go a lot farther. So I will uh call upon House leadership myself to make this a priority, to get this passed, to get the reauthorization done uh by the end uh of this term. Um, I think that we've heard some great examples today uh of programs across the country that are innovative, uh that are really helping uh you know families and and uh and the entire child care sector in important ways. I think at the federal level we of course have the the Baruch grant which is indispensable. The other lever we have is ta- is the tax code, uh we had some uh some very good tax policy pass uh last year when it comes to child care to expand and make permanent uh credits related to to to the child tax credit, child care. uh to employer provided care uh of course these credits are not self executing and uh they're only valuable if uh folks take advantage of them so I think that there's more that we could do to spread awareness as to how these uh can be used uh but uh what I think this hearing has done as well as our last one where we had various innovative uh employer based programs is really highlight what's working. We've heard from uh about programs in Tennessee, in Kentucky, uh and in uh Iowa uh as well as we heard examples of programs in North Carolina uh and Alabama uh and Oregon. And so uh to the extent that we can show uh innovative programs that are working well and inspire others across the country uh to adopt similar programs, uh then we can uh s- see that fed- the federal support we do provide uh catalyzes uh a lot more change and provides a lot more opportunities uh to families who really need it right now uh at a time when costs are so high in so many ways. and for child care in particular. So thank you again uh for our witnesses. Without objection, there being no further business, the committee stands adjourned.