As the Commonwealth’s 2025-2026 fiscal year approaches its third month without a fully enacted budget, the financial burdens on our service providers are mounting.  Because of the continued delay in many expected payments across a variety of programs, many of our critical service providers are being forced to choose between securing loans, laying off staff, reducing services, or closing entirely.

For childcare providers that participate in the Pre-K Counts program, administered by the Department of Education, the options are especially stark. Without the necessary payments, they might not be able to provide the childcare parents need to be able to continue to work. In addition to the immediate financial challenges for those families, this has downstream impacts on their employers and the Commonwealth’s economy.

The General Assembly can take the lead in providing targeted relief to childcare facilities that participate in the Pre-K Counts program.  My legislation would provide no-interest loans equal to the amount a Pre-K Counts provider would have received if the budget had been enacted timely. Once a full budget is enacted, these loans would be repaid to the Commonwealth through an offset against the amounts the provider would receive from the Pre-K Counts program.

Further, this legislation will also provide for programmatic flexibility for providers to be able to continue to participate in the Pre-K Counts program when the program re-starts after the budget is enacted, including modifying the minimum number of instructional days for providers that could not begin the school year on time due to the lack of timely payment.

There remain concrete financial and policy differences between all of the participants in the budget process, but we should not be requiring childcare providers to bear the costs of the current disagreement. 
I look forward to working with you on this important legislation.