Child Care Policy Truths
ECEA Does the Hard Thing
Anyone can cheer for new money. ECEA reads every proposal for what it will do to your business before it becomes law, not after.--Find out next week what the board recommends on Boulders Brighter Start Ballot Initiative.
There is an easy job in child care advocacy and there is a hard job.
The easy job is to say yes to every dollar, repeat the promises, and hope. The hard job is to read the policy on the front end, find the flaws, and ask the questions nobody wants asked. That is the job ECEA chose. We look past the headline, dig under the surface data, and tell you the truth about what is happening in this industry, even when the truth is uncomfortable.
This week, three examples: Universal Preschool (UPK), Proposition NN, and a "public option" bill that is already being drafted for next session.
UPK was packed with promises
Remember what UPK promised: a mixed delivery system, families choosing from public and private programs on equal footing, and funding that follows the child. Owners were told they would be partners.
Today the state says mixed delivery is working. Its own report shows about 55 percent of UPK four-year-olds in school-based programs and about 43 percent in community-based programs. Two sectors, enrolled close together. Case closed.
Except that number leaves something out. Before UPK, Colorado already funded preschool for thousands of three-year-olds through the old Colorado Preschool Program, and that money went to school districts. It still does because that historical funding carries forward. The state just does not call it UPK, so it never shows up in the mixed delivery math.
Count all state-funded preschool as what it is, in its totality, and ECEA's analysis puts community-based programs at roughly a quarter of the children. That is not a mixed delivery system. It is a public system with a private supplement. We do have a mixed delivery system in Colorado; it just is not defined the way we were told it would be.
"Mixed delivery works" is only a true statement if you leave out the preschool money that only goes to school districts.
Dig below the surface
The surface data looks fine. Number of programs, roughly flat. Number of slots, slightly up. The state can point to those two numbers and say the system is stable.
Look one layer down. ECEA matched the state's licensing records by license number from June 2023 to July 2026. More than 1,000 programs closed in three years. One in four privately owned programs is gone, replaced by new ones that start over at zero. Family child care homes took the biggest hit.
Every one of those closures is a business failure. It lives on with that owner for the rest of their working life. Many walk away from this industry with little more than the shirt on their back, after years of serving families on margins of one to three percent. A flat program count does not show you that. We will.
Prop NN: "might" and "could" "IF"
Proposition NN is the measure on your ballot that lets the state keep money above the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) cap and send it, first and guaranteed, to K-12 school districts for ten years. After the 10 years those TABOR rules are changed permanently and the school districts benefit directly from it.
We sat in the supporters' advocacy meeting. Here is how child care was described. We "might" get funding. We "could" get funding. All of it depends on school districts not spending the money first.
In the life of your business, have you ever seen that happen?
We would love to say any money is good money. The truth is far from that. Some money, especially temporary money, is just something to keep you from noticing what is really happening to the system. A year or two of crumbs (even large ones) can look like a partnership while the formula underneath moves the children, the funding, and the future somewhere else.
Would we all love to see millions or billions flow into child care? Of course. Would we take funding that is built for us, with protections written in? In our September Walk It Forward survey, 73 percent of you said yes to exactly that. Prop NN is not that. Your Board read the bill, ran the math ten years out, and voted to recommend a No vote. The full breakdown is in our last two updates.
The other half of the plan
Here is the part that should get every owner's attention.
At the same time the Capitol is working to secure up to a 50 percent increase in funding for school districts, legislation is being prepared to study a "public option" for child care. That is right. Child care in public schools, for children birth to five. The bill would create a committee to "determine the feasibility."
Keep this in mind: school districts can already do this. Colorado's child care licensing rules have a section written specifically for child care programs and preschools operated by a public school district, and districts across the state already run licensed centers. The legislature even passed a bill this spring to cut duplicate regulation for district-run child care centers. Nobody needs a study to find out if it is feasible. It is happening now.
So what is the study for? Read it as what it is: a major play. If Prop NN passes, the public option would be built inside the best-funded sector in the state, with every incentive to pull children from your programs into theirs. Pair a 50 percent raise with a plan to expand into infants and toddlers and the picture is clear.
It is not as simple as saying yes to money. We have to say yes to the right kind of funding.
The right kind of funding
The job is not to chase whatever is on the table. The job is innovative approaches that support low-income families and let the money follow the child to the program the family chooses. Senator Scott Bright's Senate Bill 26-180, which would have funded the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP) for the thousands of families frozen out today, is that kind of approach. It did not raise taxes and it did not route money through districts. It comes back in 2027, and ECEA is already working through members to get legislators to better understand how this is a great solution.
That is also our answer to the people who say ECEA is just the "no" crowd, or just one side of the aisle. We are people who care about business, business practices, and the freedom to run a program the way your families need. Those are not partisan values.
The uncomfortable truth
Proposition NN was a last-minute attempt to maybe grab some funding for this industry out of a school district bill. If NN passes and the public option follows, we ask one question: how will it impact your business? Not the system. Not the sector. Your program, your staff, your families.
In Colorado, traditionally only 65-75% of active voters vote. The last midterm was on the low end. Think about that...
- In a state with over SIX MILLION PEOPLE,
- and 4.3 Eligible voters
- In 2022 (the last midterm) ONLY 2.54 Million ballots were cast.
- 42% of Colorado residents are deciding what tomorrow looks like for you and your business. Wonder how many of them work for the school districts!?!
Ballots are out. Review party platforms because they change regularly. Vote on your personal values and your business values. Where the two conflict, decide which one is your priority. Then do the one thing that matters most.
Just vote.
What you can do this week
- Return your ballot before November 3. Mail it early or use a drop box.
- Share this update with your staff and families. They vote too, and they care what happens to their program.
- Reply to this email if you want our full Prop NN breakdown or the lobbying spreadsheet on Senate Bill 26-135.
- Book time with ECEA to talk through what the 2027 session could mean for your program.
We are in the meetings so you do not have to be. We elevate your voice.
TOGETHER WE ARE STRONGER
We are the workforce behind the workforce.
