HB1566

This bill will make contingent appropriation to the department of health and human services for the purpose of providing recruitment and benefit grants to child care employers. Support HB 1566

Providing affordable child care is extremely important to our young families. Please support this bill.

I support this bill

This reasonable Bill makes a contingent appropriation to the department of health and human services for the purpose of providing recruitment and benefit grants to child care employers.

I strongly support this effort to help childcare employers recruit workers. The childcare crisis in New Hampshire hurts families and businesses alike. Please vote this funding OTP as a way to address one of our most pressing problems. It's a wise investment.

The child care crisis in New Hampshire is a fundamental workforce bottleneck. We cannot expect parents to return to work if there are no teachers to staff our child care classrooms, and we cannot find those teachers without competitive benefits. HB 1566 is a vital insurance policy that ensures the recruitment and retention grants promised in the last budget actually reach our providers. Relying on federal TANF funds was always a precarious strategy; this bill provides the necessary state-level backup to ensure that these small businesses and their employees are not left behind by federal regulatory hurdles. Investing $15 million from the General Fund to stabilize the child care sector is a sound economic move. When centers can't find staff, they close rooms, and when rooms close, the rest of our state's workforce remains sidelined. We made a commitment to these providers, and we should use our state resources to honor that commitment, ensuring that child care remains a viable career and that parents have the support they need to participate in our economy.

I urge you to vote in favor of this bill to use State General Funds to fund childcare workforce retention and recruitment funds. It is critical to support our childcare workforce which is helping to educate and care for NH's children, as well as their families, so ALL of us can thrive here in New Hampshire.

Childcare workers are the backbone of our society!

I would like to see everything done that we could possibly do to support the child care field. We learned, or should have learned, during the pandemic a few years ago when child care workers had to quit and programs closed that employees in the child care field are a necessity for the economy of our State. But many don't get benefits or even a livable wage. We learned that, without the child care staff, programs will close. We also learned that, without child care programs, directors, teachers, providers, and others who work in that field, families have no child care. And, without child care, parents can't work. When the workforce can't work, they have to rely on State services to get by financially. And also, when the workforce can't work, the businesses suffer for lack of employees. And, when the businesses suffer, the economy also suffers. It's the snowball affect that impacts the entire state, not just a few. Please support this bill. In so doing, you'll be supporting, not just child care programs and those who work in the field, but also other businesses and families that would be impacted by a significant lack of child care in the state. Thank you. Gail Glines

Without this support, the families of NH will be experiencing additional increases in the cost of childcare. Providers need these funds to continue to attract and retain a highly qualified workforce.

I strongly support HB 1566 because it makes a smart and much-needed investment in New Hampshire’s child care workforce. Child care providers are essential to the well-being of our children and to the stability of our workforce and economy, yet they continue to face low wages and high turnover. Workforce grants will help recruit and retain qualified caregivers, improve program quality, and ensure families can access reliable, high-quality child care. Supporting the people who care for our youngest residents strengthens families, employers, and communities across the state, and HB 1566 is an important step toward that goal.

Dear Representatives of the Finance Committee, Please support the future of healthy and bright Granite Staters by supporting HB1566! Robust and regulated Early Childhood Education is the foundation on which our children can thrive. Not only does quality childcare give our children the concepts and tools they need when their parents have to work multiple jobs to keep afloat due to the high cost of housing in NH, but it allows parent(s) to have the time to work those jobs. Our workforce who have low-paying jobs needs childcare centers to help them provide the time to be able to work those low-paying sources of income. Please support HB1566! Thank you, Rebecca MacKenzie, LICSW

There needs to be child care for the economy to move forward.

Fund Childcare it’s what is sustaining the middle class to be able to work and live paycheck to paycheck.

We need to fund childcare so parents can work. The middle class is living paycheck to paycheck barely with their heads above water in this economy we need quality childcare for our children when we are at work.

As a current child care worker we need help, we are struggling and to combat this struggle we need more money, not lowering standards like licensing did when they lowered the credits to get people in the doors to staff schools.

Support families in New Hampshire

My name is Laura Tatro, and I live in Hebron, New Hampshire. I strongly support HB 1566, because for me, this isn’t an abstract policy issue — it’s something I’ve watched play out in real time, in a real child-care center, with real families who are doing their best. My step-mother owns a small child-care center, and I’ve worked there on and off for years whenever she needs help. I’ve seen firsthand how hard it is for her to keep her doors open, not because she doesn’t have families who need care, but because she simply can’t afford to pay her staff what they truly deserve. She refuses to raise tuition on families who are already stretched thin, and that leaves her constantly trying to balance what’s fair for her workers with what’s possible for parents. It’s heartbreaking to watch her make those choices. Child-care is already one of the biggest expenses families face, and yet the people doing this incredibly important work — caring for our children, shaping their early years, giving them safety and stability — are often paid less than they could make in jobs with far less responsibility. It’s no wonder centers struggle to hire and keep staff. And when they can’t, classrooms close. Families lose care. Parents lose work hours. The ripple effect touches every part of our communities. HB 1566 matters because it gives New Hampshire a way to support the child-care workforce if federal funding falls through. It’s a safety net for the people who show up every day to care for our kids. It’s a way to help centers like my step-mother’s keep qualified staff without pushing families past their breaking point. And it’s a recognition that raising children — and supporting the people who help raise them — is one of the most important investments we can make in our future. The children in these classrooms deserve stability and quality care. The workers deserve fair pay. And parents deserve a system that doesn’t force them to choose between their jobs and their children. HB 1566 helps move us toward that reality. I urge you to pass this bill and give child-care providers, families, and communities the support they desperately need.

Support families!

Please approve this bill. Those of us in running Early Childhood Programs have been struggling to squeeze every penny out of our budgets and we need support. We require a commitment to the importance of Early Childhood Programs, for children, for working parents, for workplaces needing employees.

Child care services are critical to our state economy and its labor force. HB 1566 is much needed to stabilize this sector of our economy. Please support it.

I SUPPORT HB 1566 and hope that Granite State leaders do too. Without resources to fill the gap between operating costs and tuition (considering that the cost to families is already typically unaffordable), we will not have adequate childcare in NH. This impacts our aging demographics in so many ways--ability to recruit and retain young people who may have families and support current and future workforce needs, employer decisions to stay or locate here, affordability, workforce participation, and early learning for America's future leaders. It's all about economics. CHILDCARE FUNDING HAS MANY RETURNS ON INVESTMENT! Check out the latest report from UNH-- https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/operating-thin-margins-cost-providing-new-hampshire-child-care. Thank you from a concerned citizen and local government staffer who gets regular inquiries from major employers and parents about what NH is doing to improve childcare resourcing.

Myself

We MUST support early childhood education. Thank you.