California will expand the number of state-subsidized child-care spaces by 22,770 following months of uncertainty and threatened cuts to a vital program for working parents.
Leaders and advocates in the child-care industry had been anxious for months and lobbying legislators in the hopes that Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has supported early childhood education, would make good on earlier pledges to support an expansion in his budget.
The increase, included in the final budget Newsom signed Monday, means that roughly half of the 44,000 slots promised for the upcoming fiscal year will be funded, bringing the overall expansion to nearly three-quarters of the total 206,800 slots he promised in 2021. Even with the expansion, the state funds enough slots to subsidize only about 18% of eligible children.
“Considering that we didn’t have any of those spaces and we had cuts proposed in the May Revise, I’m really happy to see that, and grateful to the EC advocates and our legislative champions that made that possible,” said Laura Pryor, research director at the California Budget & Policy Center.
The additional funding for child care came largely from Senate negotiators, who pieced together a plan that in part relied on moving nonprofit state preschools to Proposition 98, which sets a minimum funding guarantee for schools and community colleges.
The move has gotten pushback from groups including the California School Boards Assn. that express concern that preschool funding will take away money from school districts and community colleges.
The budget also removes some barriers to accessing care for families. All families, regardless of income, that live or work in school district boundaries where at least 80% of children qualify for free or reduced lunch will automatically be eligible to enroll in state preschool. The children of school district employees will also qualify for enrollment regardless of income if spaces are available.
“That greatly reduces the hurdles that parents face to be admitted into a state preschool program,” UC Berkeley professor emeritus Bruce Fuller said. “Now it’s more comparable to automatic admission into TK. It’s a really positive step to simplify access rather than making it really difficult to qualify.”
The additional slots will translate to movement on often years-long waitlists, said Stacy Lee, the chief learning officer and senior managing director of early childhood at Children Now.
“The more we make care accessible, the more it gives families the opportunities to truly make the choices that are best for them,” Lee said.
Child-care access and affordability remain a high-pressure concern for parents.
The median cost for full-time care for an infant in Los Angeles County was $1,209 a month at a family child-care home and $1,818 a month at a center in 2024, according to data from the California Budget & Policy Center. For a preschooler, the cost was $1,121 at a home and $1,271 at a center. And for school-age children, care cost $884 at a home and $959 at a center.
Looking forward
Over his last term, Newsom has expanded early childhood education and created a new grade — free transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds — at a cost of $2.7 billion. He approved legislation creating Child Care Providers United, which unionized child-care workers across the state, increasing provider pay and establishing healthcare and retirement funds. Family contributions for subsidized care were capped at 1% of a family’s income rather than nearly 10%.
Advocates said they will continue to seek more support for child-care providers, which has stalled. Funding was not included to support rate reform that would better reflect the actual cost of running a child-care home or center.
The final budget does not increase the 2.01% cost-of-living raise for state preschool staff and child-care providers who run programs with subsidized spaces, which child-care advocates also pushed for.
“If you’re expanding spaces, you need to be making sure that we have a stable and growing workforce, and our budget does not account for that second half of the equation,” Pryor said.
Current state subsidies in the Los Angeles region are based on the 2018 market rate for care: up to $1,122 for full-time infant care, $1,006 for toddler care and $753 for school-age care at family child-care homes. The rate is below median costs and isn’t an accurate reflection of what they spend to operate today. Child-care advocates are supporting new legislation, Assembly Bill 1981, to lock in a timeline that would allow providers to be reimbursed for their services at increasing rates.
Still, the increase in child-care support growth has been monumental for California’s early childhood landscape, said Fuller, who hopes the state takes time to evaluate the efforts.
“I think the new governor will arrive with a more stable and more generous early education system than we had eight years ago,” he said. “I think hopefully a new governor will shift the focus more toward improving quality.”
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children, from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
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