Highlights from the state’s early childhood policy advocacy community include:7
HB954 is the biggest boost in tax credits for working families in recent memory. Tax credits help people keep more of their hard-earned money, and when targeted for lower-to middle-income families, as HB 954 is, help reduce financial hardship. This bill allots about $80 million per year for the next five years to working families by boosting three important tax credits: the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Food/Excise Tax Credit, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. This is the largest increase to tax credits for working families in recent memory.
HB961 is a cornerstone of Hawaii’s Lieutenant Governor’s Ready Keiki initiative. It will fundamentally change the ways that the state government serves young children. The bill expands both the Preschool Open Doors subsidy and the Executive Office on Early Learning (EOEL) Public Prekindergarten programs to include3-year-olds. Both currently only serve 4-year-olds. This bill is coupled with key investments in the state executive budget. Preschool Open Doors’ annual operating budget will go from $11.2 million to $50 million by the end of the biennium. EOEL Public Prekindergarten will receive operational funding to open an additional 55 classrooms over the next two years, taking the stock of classrooms from 37 to 92.
SB239 creates a program to support early childhood care and education providers gain accreditation. The bill requires the state Department of Human Services to create a program that will provide regulated child care providers financial assistance for fees and technical assistance for the accreditation process. Additionally, the bill extends the deadline for providers in the state-funded preschool subsidy program to gain accreditation (current law requires unaccredited providers begin accreditation process by 2024; SB239 gives them until 2029 to begin). The bill comes with a $2.1 million one-time appropriation.
SB295 establishes the Malama Ohana Working Group. This effort, led by Na Kama A Haloa, a community-based network led by executives from Hawaiian-serving and Hawaiian executives from other child-serving organizations, to center reforms for the state’s child welfare system on lived experiences and root them in Hawaiian knowledge. The goal is that the working group will bring forth recommendations for transformative change for the child welfare system that will particularly address disparities that Native Hawaiians face in the system.
Base Budget Funding for Early Childhood Educator Stipend Program. This year the State Legislature committed $660,000 of annually of state general funds to the program. The funding will go in the Executive Office on Early Learning’s base budget meaning it is that much more likely to stay in the budget moving forward. In 2021, the State Legislature established the Early Childhood Educator Stipend program. The program is a partnership between the Executive Office on Early Learning and the University of Hawaii College of Education. During the foundation-building period and in the launch year, the program has been funded by Samuel N. and Mary Castle Foundation, a local foundation.
Work with State Department of Human Services (DHS) to establish an infant and toddler workforce qualification workgroup. Year over year, infant and toddler center providers share that they face significant barriers in hiring. They have long identified a confusing and often contradictory set of minimum experience and education qualifications as one of the major barriers. After lengthy discussions with the state department including working with other community convenings and interested parties, DHS has agreed to establish a work group which will help develop demonstration projects to find alternative requirements that still maintain high quality and the utmost safety. The workgroup is set to commence over the summer with broad-based representation.
Advocates continued work to advance an increase of wages for early childhood care and education professionals in community-based settings. HB547 would have established a pilot program that provided state money for infant and toddler centers to increase wages by $3/hour across the board for caregiver staff. It died on the final day of conference committee. DHS indicates they will use remaining CCDBG supplemental monies for recruitment and retention, possibly including a shorter pilot.
There are some pretty significant administrative changes coming as part of the Lieutenant Governor’s Ready Keiki initiative. Some include increased child care provider payment rates for the state-funded child care subsidies as well as increased family eligibility and improved copayment structures. Advocates are also working on removing the tuition cap for state-funded subsidies. These should be finalized late 2023 0r early 2024.