Major Progress for Common Start in the FY24 State Budget!

On Monday, the Massachusetts legislature passed a final state budget for the next year that makes major new investments in early education and child care!

The FY24 state budget includes $1.5 billion for early education and child care, including $475 million in new state funding for the Commonwealth Cares for Children grants to child care providers. That historic funding level represents a $268 million, or 22%, increase over last year’s budget!

Thank you to Chairman Michlewitz, Chairman Rodrigues, and all the members of the legislature for supporting a historic level of investment in early education and child care in this year’s state budget! This budget moves us another step closer to achieving the Common Start vision of high-quality, affordable, and accessible child care for Massachusetts families!

While there are many worthy and necessary budget line items related to early education and child care, the Common Start Coalition this year prioritized several major investments that represent significant progress toward our goals. See below for details of our budget priorities and how they were funded in the state budget:

●      Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) Operational Grants – $475 million ($7 million increase from FY23)
Funding to continue the state’s C3 grants to child care providers to offset their operating costs, including higher educator pay. This is the first year the grants will be paid for entirely with state money rather than federal funds.

●      Access to Income-Eligible Care – $779 million ($85 million increase from FY23)
Funding to provide access to financial assistance for income-eligible families.

●      Early Education Rates of Reimbursement – $90 million ($25 million increase from FY23)
Funding to invest in program quality, workforce salaries for subsidized child care providers, and likely improve access to child care financial assistance by increasing the number of programs that are willing and able to accept vouchers.

●      Early Educator Pilot – $15 million ($5 million increase from FY23)
Funding to continue to develop the Department of Early Education and Care’s successful Early Education and Care Staff Pilot Program. The pilot serves both to support the workforce’s child care needs and as a tool for recruiting new staff.

●      Access Management – $20 million ($5 million increase from FY23)

Funding for navigational support and outreach to help eligible families access state-subsidized early education and care.

●      Head Start Supplemental Grant – $17.5 million ($1 million increase from FY23)
Funding needed to increase salaries in Head Start classrooms and help programs meet their non-federal match requirement.

●      Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative – $20.5 million ($5.5 million increase from FY23)
Funding for grants to support planning and implementation to expand pre-kindergarten or preschool utilizing the Massachusetts Preschool Expansion Grant public-private partnership model.

●      Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Services – $5 million ($1.5 million increase from FY23)
Funding for early childhood mental health consultation services in early education and care programs.

●      Family and Community Engagement Services – $11.9 million ($160,000 increase from FY23)
Funding for the coordinated family and community engagement grant program, a statewide network of supports for early education.

(For a full list of all early education and care line items in the FY23 budget, check out Strategies for Children’s budget analysis here.)

In total, our Common Start budget priorities received $1.434 billion in funding in this year’s budget, up from $1.294 billion in last year’s budget (which itself represented a major increase from pre-pandemic funding levels).

Our advocacy is paying off – but there is still more work to do. Reaching our full vision of affordable care options for families; significantly better pay and benefits for early educators; stable operational funding for providers; high-quality programs and services for children; and substantial relief for businesses and our economy will require a continued funding effort over the course of several years. And we look forward to working with legislators to pass comprehensive early education and child care legislation this session (as outlined in S.301, filed by Senators Lewis & Moran, & H.489, filed by Representatives Gordon & Madaro).

Thank you to everyone who helped advocate for this win in the budget, and stay tuned for more opportunities to organize and advocate this fall!