Comprehensive legislation aimed at reforming Kentucky’s child care industry passed the House Tuesday 84-11 with one abstention.  House Bill 6 would codify free child care for child care providers, base child care assistance subsidies on the community-level cost of child care rather than the mark et rate, launch data collection on the industry, require training for providers caring for children with special needs and more.  The bill has 26 co-sponsors, including House Speaker David Osborne and several Democrats.  Primary sponsor Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, said on the floor that her bill would promote quality of child care while making it more accessible.  “Parents must be able to make their own choices for their families,” Heavrin said. “The choice requires there to be options in the first place.”  Key provisions: In November, Sarah Vanover, policy and research director for Kentucky Youth Advocates, published a paper detailing key factors leading to injuries of children at  child care centers. Her findings showed workers are overworked, paid too little, and require  better training to work with special needs children.  She said at that time that Kentucky could improve conditions in centers for children if child care workers were required to spend three of their 15 annual professional development training hours on special education training. HB 6 would do just that, proposing three hours for licensed child care providers and two hours for certified family child care home providers.  “It’s not going to solve everything, but at least it will start to educate our providers and make sure that they start to get some of that training in place,” Vanover said.  Other provisions in the legislation include:  Outsourcing the Employee Child Care Assistance Partnership, which incentivizes employers to help employees pay for child care, to a third party to manage the program. The current program involves employers, the state and families and significant “red tape,” Vanover said.  Collecting data on actual child care shortages in the state rather than center capacity. The first report is due Dec.  1.  Creating a pilot program for child care microcenters in Kentucky that care for up to 24 children, with limitations based on the age of the youngest child. Regulations for the microcenter program are due by July 1, 2027. Microcenters are freestanding facilities that can be run by providers who have been licensed or certified with Kentucky for at least three years and are in good standing. Under the bill, the cabinet would prioritize microcenters that apply to open in a rural area and service parents who work nontraditional hours. There could be no more than two of these microcenters open in a county and no more than 10 open in the state at one time.  Reforming the rating system for child care centers, allowing for outcome-based successes. Read the full bill here.  ‘Care is out of reach’ In her House floor speech, Heavrin pointed to research showing child care obstacles keep some people from having children. In 2024, the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy released a survey of 1,357 parents from 88 counties, with 20% of those surveyed saying they delayed having children because of the price of child care.  Child care costs per child per year can range from $5,500 to $10,000, which  means “care is out of reach for too many families,” Heavrin said.  “I think one thing that’s really important to talk about right now is when we’re looking at talking about child care policies, we notice that generations like mine and those that come after me aren’t having kids as fast as other generations had,” Heavrin said. Births in Kentucky declined from 52,318 in 2022 to 51,992 in 2023, the Lantern previously reported. Heavrin also pitched supporting child care as a “pro life” move, saying it’s important to look “at how we can help families and encourage people to have kiddos — if they want them.”  HB6 can now go to the Senate for consideration.  “We know that this bill isn’t going to be enough for some and it’s too much for others, but House Bill 6 lays the foundation for building a stronger and more sustainable private child care network, which includes 2,000 small businesses, nonprofits and faith-based organizations throughout the state, serving more than 100,000 young children, and supporting workforce participations for thousands of working parents,” Heavrin said. “More efforts will be needed in the future, but this will initiate work that should have happened years ago.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE    The post Kentucky child care reform bill on the move in legislature  appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less