State Rep. Mike Clines didn’t take long to vote yes when House Bill 561 was called for passage on Tuesday. In short, the bill – passed 77-14 in the House – encourages local governments to be more child-care friendly in a state where affordable childcare options are increasingly scarce.
Clines, an Alexandria Republican and lead cosponsor of HB 561, told LINK nky the bill “provides an actionable playbook for improving access” to child care, including what he said is an increased need for in-home childcare in Northern Kentucky and statewide.
The bill’s centerpiece is a program allowing local governments to voluntarily seek designation as a Kentucky “certified child care community” by working to remove barriers to child care services. Clines said barriers include ambiguous zoning rules and mounting regulatory fees that discourage participation in the industry.
“The fact that many jurisdictions do not define a child care business within their land-use rules can create ambiguity for providers trying to navigate permitting processes, and only a handful of jurisdictions have any permitted allowances for child care,” he told LINK nky. “Another practical barrier we would flag are fees associated with zoning/conditional use applications and permits.”
Clines sought input on the bill from the NKY child care industry, including Borrowed Babies Daycare, Aunt Kathy’s Child Care and Preschool and EC Learn – the nonprofit the Early Childhood Learning Education Assessment Resource Network.
“Given the immediate need for child care in Northern Kentucky, we would very much agree that there is a dire need for all forms of child care, and certainly for more in-home child care options,” Clines told LINK nky. HB 561 “fully preserves local control, provides a blueprint for communities to take a very communal approach to develop a workforce, gives workers access to child care, and most importantly, helps children develop academically, physically, emotionally, and socially,” he said.
Certified child care community designation under HB 561 would be granted by the state Cabinet for Economic Development. Although applications wouldn’t be accepted until after April 1, 2025, communities could access recommendations and best practices for child care-friendly land-use policies – such as conditional use permits – by Dec. 1, 2024.
That information would be published on the cabinet’s website for easy access.
HB 561’s primary sponsor is House Families and Children committee chair Rep. Samara Heavrin (R-Leitchfield). In a press statement Tuesday, Heavrin said Kentucky is one of many states facing challenges in child care.
“Our ability to face these challenges will be one of the most important topics that will be addressed this session. We must work together to increase access to high-quality child care and early childhood education in our communities,” she said.
The certified child care community designation in HB 561 will encourage local governments “to assess and reform their local zoning and land use regulations to permit the establishment of child care facilities,” according to a press release on the bill from the House Republican Caucus.
HB 561 would also impact the Kentucky Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership, created in 2022, by removing the program’s designation as a pilot program in state law. The $15 million program provides matching funds to employers who subsidize employee child care costs but has occasionally struggled to attract employer participation.
“It’s difficult for businesses to commit to adjusting benefit packages when the program is experimental,” Clines said, advocating for the removal of the pilot designation in HB 561.
HB 561 would require state agencies to promote the program to employers who receive state services or do business with the state to increase participation in the child care assistance program further.
The bill now advances to the Senate, where a $300 million early child care proposal in Senate Bill 203 cleared the Senate Families and Children committee on Tuesday. Supporters of that bill, dubbed the Horizons Act, say it would improve child care options as federal pandemic funding for the state’s child care industry comes to an end.
SB 203 lead sponsor Sen. Danny Carroll (R-Benton) will request $150 million from the budget in each of the next two fiscal years to fund the proposal in the bill, according to a press release Tuesday from the Senate Republican Caucus.
During the pandemic, Kentucky received over $763 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to support the state’s beleaguered child care industry, the release says. Approximately $200 million of that amount remained in Nov. 2023.
Depletion of federal pandemic funding for affordable child care was cited in a July 2023 op-ed from Kentucky Center for Economic Policy policy director Dustin Pugel, who suggested the 2024 General Assembly use the state’s rainy day fund – now in excess of $3.7 billion by most accounts – or other appropriations to improve child care access.
“If they don’t, we know the catastrophe that’s coming. By one estimate, the more than $1 billion in federal funding that flowed into Kentucky’s childcare industry since 2020 prevented half of our centers from closing and saved nearly 80,000 child care spots” Pugel said. “Already, half of Kentucky’s kids live in a child care desert, an area with no available spots for children who need care or more than three kids per available spot.”