Neighborhood Villages Celebrates Governor Healey’s Signing of FY24 State Budget
The Final State FY24 Budget Includes Nearly $1.5 Billion For Early Education and Care, Including $475 Million for Child Care Operations Grants
BOSTON, MA (August 9, 2023) - Today, Neighborhood Villages — a Boston-based nonprofit that advocates for solutions to the greatest challenges faced by the early education sector — celebrated Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s signing of the FY24 state budget. This year’s state budget commits nearly $1.5 billion to early education and care, including $475 million for the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) grant program. These direct-to-provider operations grants are essential to the field’s viability and are vital to creating a sustainable child care sector.
Lauren Kennedy, co-president of Neighborhood Villages, issued the following statement:
“Today, we witnessed Governor Healey commit to the highest level of investment in early education and care that Massachusetts has ever seen. With nearly $1.5 billion in funding for child care, including a $475 million investment for the C3 program, this budget will help propel transformative progress when it comes to overhauling our broken child care system.
“We are grateful to Governor Healey and the Legislature for recognizing the essential role of affordable, high-quality early education and care in Massachusetts. This funding will help expand access to child care for families, enhance affordability, and increase educator wages across the sector. Importantly, this budget also signals that policymakers are declaring that early education is education and should be publicly-funded.
“And while today’s budget is a victory for children, families, providers, and educators across our state, our work is not done. We strongly support legislation being considered this fall that would improve the affordability of high-quality child care for more families and promote increased compensation for early educators. We look forward to continuing our work with the Administration, the Legislature, and other stakeholders to increase the sustained public investment needed to meaningfully reform our child care system.”
Background
The budget also includes:
$45 million to increase the reimbursement rate to providers for subsidies;
$25 million for financial assistance waitlist reduction, expected to serve nearly 2,000 additional children;
$840 million towards child care financial assistance for low income and vulnerable children;
$10 million for higher education opportunities for early educators;
$5 million for early education and care mental health consultation; and
Early education funding from the Education-Transportation Trust Fund established for revenue resulting from the Fair Share Amendment.
Background on Operations Grants
The C3 operations grant program has supported more than 7,100 early education and care programs across the Commonwealth – including 4,500 family child care (FCC) providers and 2,600 center-based providers. These direct-to-provider operations grants have been highly effective: data from more than 6,000 grant recipients demonstrate the foundational role that operations grants have played – and will continue to play – in sustaining Massachusetts’ early education and care sector.
Some data from grant recipients includes:
751 providers (more than 12% of all providers in MA), inclusive of 556 FCC providers, reported that they would have to close if operations grants ceased.
As a result of receiving grants funds, 83% of center-based providers and 41% of FCC providers allocated grant funds to staff compensation.
With the help of C3 funds, more than 25% of all providers were able to defer planned tuition increases.
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About Neighborhood Villages
Neighborhood Villages, founded in 2017 by Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, is a Boston-based systems-change non-profit that advocates for early education and care policy reform and implements scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges facing providers and the families who rely on them. For more information, visithttps://www.neighborhoodvillages.org/our-model.
