Capital Campus in its Cherry Blossom Beauty!
(Photo Courtesy: Lauren Allen)
While “Sine Die” represents the end of the day-to-day busyness of the legislative session, session is not truly over until the Governor completes action on bills. This year, Governor Ferguson completed action on the nearly 300 pieces of legislation that made it to his desk on April 1st – no joke! – well ahead of the constitutional April 4 deadline.
2026 Session Reflections
After catching up on some much-needed sleep, I wanted to share some reflections about early learning outcomes from this challenging legislative session.
A Look Back to December…. While it is fair to feel frustration about various aspects of the final budget (I know I do), I think it is important to look back at the challenges we faced heading into the 2026 session following the release of Governor Ferguson’s proposed Supplemental budget:
- Yet another year of severe state budget constraints. Governor Ferguson proposed $797 million of cuts, with $322 million of these cuts coming from Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) and Transition to Kindergarten (TTK) alone, representing 40% of the total proposed cuts;
- A proposed 33,000 family cap on WCCC; and
- The lowering of WCCC child care center provider rates to the 75th percentile of the 2024 Market Rate Survey (MRS) effective July 1, 2026.
The early learning field came together to:
- Defeat the proposal to institute a cap to Working Connections Child Care;
- Maintain the commitment that WCCC center providers be reimbursed at the 85th percentile of the 2024 MRS on July 1, 2026; and
- Mitigate 45% of the cuts proposed in Governor Ferguson’s budget, reducing the total cuts for early learning from $322 million to $175 million.
Thanks to private funding, ECEAP is ready to grow. On the positive side, a generous gift from the Ballmer Group will support expanded access to the state’s Early Childhood Education Assistance Program (ECEAP). This gift positions ECEAP to meet entitlement by the 2030-31 school year – a long- and hard-fought effort by advocates that has been delayed numerous times. The private commitment will provide up to $170 million annually to expand up to 10,000 seats for eligible 3- and 4-year-old children.
New Millionaire’s Tax Revenue to Help Address Early Learning Needs. After decades of work, advocates succeeded in enacting progressive revenue policy in our state. And while it will face legal challenges, the policy is expected to bring an estimated $3 billion annually into the state’s coffers once it goes into effect beginning in State Fiscal Year 2029. In one of the later amendments to the bill, a change was made to direct 5% of the revenue to the Fair Start for Kids Act Account. See the Washington State Standard article for coverage of the bill signing.
Capital Budget Funds Full Minor Renovation Requests. Consistently, the qualified requests for Early Learning Facilities (ELF) expansion and minor renovation grants exceed available funding. This year, the funding gap for qualified minor renovation grants totaled $5.9 million. In the final Supplemental Capital Budget, budget writers included $5.9 million, allowing for the full list of qualified minor renovation projects to be funded. This action will help preserve existing ECEAP and child care capacity.
Reduced Funding Will Create Challenges for Providers and Access in Working Connections Child Care and Transition to Kindergarten (TTK) Programs. The bulk of the early learning cuts came in two primary areas:
- Changes to Working Connections Child Care Rates for Center Providers (-$143.3 million). The primary reduction comes from a change to the attendance policy which will more closely tie provider reimbursement to child attendance. Other reductions for center providers come from elimination of the prospective payment policy and elimination of enhanced rates in four counties.
- Transition to Kindergarten ($27.3 million). This funding cut will result in the loss of roughly a third of TTK slots statewide.
Regarding WCCC, the change related to the attendance policy will necessitate a major practice shift, and its impacts will need to be monitored closely to mitigate any loss of access for WCCC families. Further, providers in the four counties that will see the loss of the enhanced rate may see increased vulnerability with their revenues due to the combination of the new attendance policy and the loss of the enhanced rate.
Finally, I know I will be watching for release of the 2026 Market Rate Survey as SHB 2689 lowered the WCCC reimbursement rate to the 75th percentile of the MRS. The release of the 2026 MRS numbers will signal what this will mean for providers serving various age groups in different regions.
For TTK, ESSB 6260 directed OSPI to develop rules prioritizing TTK slots in the following manner:
- Schools that already operate programs that serve the students listed below, and then those schools that are located within extreme child care access deserts;
- Students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals or meet certain poverty metrics and lack access to licensed child care;
- Students who are eligible for the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) or Head Start Program, but are not scheduled for enrollment;
- Students who are eligible to receive special education; and
- Students who are English learners or multilingual learners.
ESSB 6260 also authorizes districts to charge a sliding scale fee for TTK except for students eligible for ECEAP, Head Start of special education. OSPI has until June 30, 2026, to figure this all out, the largest question being which school districts will be operating with the more limited number of state-funded TTK slots. Other questions I have include how the sliding fee program will roll-out and how OSPI will define lacking access to licensed child care.
Provider Voice Influences Policy and Budget Outcomes. While not all the outcomes were what the field wanted to see, it is important to note that through advocacy, the early learning field was able to mitigate and improve upon some proposals. For example, the Senate initially put forward an attendance policy that would not have allowed full payment for a provider if a child was sick for just one day. After swift response from the field, that feedback was heard and the attendance policy was revised in recognition that young children get ill. Frequently.
Further, the House originally proposed a policy calling for a minimum threshold for responses to the Market Rate Survey for WCCC that was already closed and is currently under review. Again, after negotiations with early learning representatives, that proposal was adapted to be more reasonable.
The 2027-29 Biennium is Expected to See Ongoing Budget Challenges. As we gear up for the 2027 legislative session (but please take time to rest, first!), it is important to recognize that the state’s budget challenges are not expected to ease quite yet. The state is projected to end this biennium with an ending balance of $231 million and end State Fiscal Year 2028 in the negative at (-$878 million). Once State Fiscal Year 2029 hits, the millionaire’s tax is projected to hit the state’s coffers and the fiscal picture is expected to improve.
Final Budget and Bill Trackers
On the final day of bill signings, Governor Ferguson signed the Operating and Capital budgets along with remaining budget trailer bills, including legislation implementing policy changes to Working Connections Child Care (SHB 2689) as well as to Transition to Kindergarten (ESSB 6260).
In the end, Governor Ferguson vetoed just $800,000 (yes, that’s in thousands) from the Operating budget as passed by the Legislature. He made just one veto related to early learning in that he vetoed the budget proviso that would have directed the Department of Children, Youth, and Families DCYF) and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to develop best practices, shared strategies, and data-sharing approaches to produce public facing dashboards, all within existing resources. His veto message stated that the agencies could not complete the dashboards by the June 30, 2026, deadline provided in the budget bill so he instead directed DCYF and OSPI to strengthen alignment in data collection for early learning programs and make that data available to the public.
In addition to the Supplemental budgets, Governor Ferguson signed 267 policy bills. Check out Start Early’s bill tracker for a final status update.
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