After a tense negotiation between the Mayor’s Office and City Council, the City of Chicago has begun to enact a 2026 budget. This budget includes a continuation of the Mayor’s $7 million allocation to support compensation increases for early childhood educators, which reflects the hard work of providers and advocates, who lifted up the needs of the early childhood workforce during last year’s budget engagement process. Here is where each of Chicago’s early childhood coalition asks stand in the 2026 budget:
ASK: $10 million increase for the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) Children’s Services Division to:
- Sustain 2025 wage increases for 3,000 early care and education providers
- Expand these wage increases to reach thousands of additional early childhood educators
RESULT: While the $7M investment in 2026 will sustain wage increases given to 3,000 educators in 2025, this budget commitment falls $3M short of the $10M ask that advocates approached the City with in July – which itself falls short of the true need, given that there are far more than 3,000 early childhood educators across Chicago and the vast majority of them are underpaid.
ASK: $1 million investment to expand the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship, allowing over 100 additional early educators to pursue degrees and enter the workforce.
RESULT: The 2026 budget does not include an increase in funding for the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship, which means the scholarship program will continue to receive far more applications than it can accommodate, leaving prospective teachers unable to enter a workforce that badly needs them to fill vacancies in early childhood programs across the city.
ASK: $2 million restoration funding to the Chicago Department of Public Health’s Family Connects Chicago program, which experienced a $4.7 million funding cut in 2025. Family Connects provides postpartum nurse home visits to ensure birthing families get a healthy start.
RESULT: Understanding that they would lose funding for this program during a difficult budget year, the Chicago Department of Public Health looked for efficiencies and alternative funding routes to sustain Family Connects Chicago programming in the five hospitals where it currently operates. While they will not receive the $2M that advocates asked for in 2026, CDPH will work toward Medicaid reimbursement for FCC nurse home visits and will rely on contributions from some participating hospitals. While a major scale-back of services will not happen, the long-term sustainability of this program and its ability to fulfill its mission to be a universal, rather than targeted, social service program remains obstructed.
