H-0512.1
HOUSE BILL 1350
State of Washington
69th Legislature
2025 Regular Session
By Representatives Alvarado, Cortes, Reeves, Scott, Macri, Taylor, Stonier, Thai, Bernbaum, Reed, Farivar, Berry, Salahuddin, Doglio, Santos, Pollet, Nance, Callan, and Fosse
Read first time 01/16/25. Referred to Committee on Appropriations.
AN ACT Relating to modernizing reimbursement rates to more accurately reflect the cost of providing high quality child care for the working connections child care program; amending RCW 43.216.828 ; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. (1) The legislature finds that supporting child care is foundational to supporting Washington families and safeguarding a thriving economy. However, for too long, Washington's broken child care system has been upending the lives of working families, kids, and employers. Many Washington families cannot find or afford child care while child care workers earn poverty level wages for their essential work.
(2) The legislature further finds that the state made significant progress with the historic fair start for kids act in 2021, which included a baseline subsidized child care reimbursement rate for child care providers at the 85th percentile of the market, and the state has been making numerous other advancements in recent years. The next step in this progress is updating how the state sets child care subsidy rates to more accurately reflect what it costs to provide quality care, based on the cost of living, including living wages for providers, in order to grow this essential workforce using the cost of quality care rate model. This model is a modernized approach to investing in quality care for families and living wages and benefits for providers, and it was cocreated with child care providers including the early educator design team, additional content experts, and the department of children, youth, and families using a methodology that was preapproved by the federal administration for children and families.