Childcare advocates are pushing to help more families qualify for state childcare dollars in this legislative session.
But don’t hold your breath. For lots of parents, daycare rates just went up, like they typically do, to start the new year.
Ashley Tyacke is of those parents trying to make ends meet in Spokane.
Tyacke’s family was one of more than 200 in the City of Spokane to qualify for a childcare grant 4 News Now reported on in June of 2024.
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Spunky two-year-old Teagan, Tyacke’s youngest daughter, attends a local daycare in Spokane that charges $1,250 per month for toddlers. It’s a steep climb in childcare tuition from the last time Tyacke enrolled her now-teenage children in daycare.
“I remember back then I paid like $800 for three kids,” Tyacke said.
Both Tyacke and her husband work to support their family, she said it’s their only option right now with a $2,400 mortgage in Spokane. The family moved from Idaho a couple of years ago and had limited homebuying options with soaring interest rates.
Her budget has been tight, and when she enrolled Teagan in daycare someone told her about the Family Tuition Assistance grant through Community- Minded Enterprises.
“I was just picking her up one day and somebody’s all like, have you applied for this yet? I’m like no. Because I don’t ever qualify for this stuff, turns out I did,” Tyacke said.
The program offered assistance for up to six months, for families who made over the salary limit for Working Connections Child Care, the state subsidy program. Now that the six months are up, those daycare dollars have been cut off.
“It’s crazy that there isn’t more funding like this, for us middle people, because we’re not poor enough to qualify for all the state assistance, but we’re definitely not rich enough to actually make it,” Tyacke said.
It’s a program Luc Jasmin III, Director of Strategic Initiatives, at Community-Minded Enterprises said only has a few spots left to new families in 2025.
“Right now we don’t know, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Jasmin said.
“I’m definitely not the type of person to take pictures or be on camera, but if this helps other families then I just I feel obligated, like I can’t not share,” Tyacke said.
$6.5 billion dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) are keeping programs in Washington like this childcare grant alive. But cuts are expected in this legislative session. The state is looking at a $12 billion budget shortfall, and funding for child care is not at the top of the priority list.
Jasmin is headed to Olympia this month to push for expanded access to the state’s childcare subsidy program, for parents, providers and early learning teachers. But he said there’s something he needs parents to do right now.
“We really need parents to voice to legislators that look, they need support, right?”
To find out if you qualify for the Family Tuition Assistance through Community-Minded Enterprises, apply here.
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