WA child care threatened by funding gaps and immigration fears | Opinion

I own and run a licensed child care center in Pasco where most of our wonderful families rely on a subsidy to help access high-quality child care. Children and their families depend on providers like us for stable, caring relationships and as a safe place to for the children to grow while parents are at work. Right now, many Washington parents can’t afford care, providers are struggling to make ends meet and immigration policies are making the situation worse.

It’s a critical time for the Washington Legislature to continue to recognize how important child care availability and delivery in Washington is to families and to our economy. Every day I see children build amazing relationships with our skilled providers that help them grow and bloom. Children depend on these experiences with their caregivers to develop and learn at a time their brain is growing rapidly. Working Connections Child Care supports children with the opportunity to thrive in high-quality child care.

Providers and families are thankful that the Washington state House and Senate budgets released this week didn’t move forward with a proposed cap on Working Connections Child Care. The Legislature recognized the increasing instability in the child care safety net and in a year of tough budget decisions, are recognizing that high-quality child care is a critical opportunity for children futures and growth.

Without the support or Working Connections, we know many parents make the tough financial decision to leave the workforce because they can’t afford to pay for child care along with all their other expenses. Business in the Tri-Cities and the economy here count on those employees, and so do our state revenues. It’s a ripple effect.

When local families can’t afford to pay for licensed child care but don’t qualify for subsidy, they don’t enroll. If enrollment drops, so do the revenues that keep a small business alive. Eventually either use your own funds to keep business going or you will be forced to close.

We won’t close, but we are getting nervous.

Federal immigration policies have also had terrible impacts on access to child care. Parents are afraid to come to child care because of immigration enforcement, even if they have legal status. They are keeping their kids at home, which also means they can’t go to work. It’s a ripple effect of fear.

Everyone benefits from a healthy community and the opportunity for all children to have high-quality early learning experiences is part of that. We need to continue to ensure that Washington provides the high quality child care that our kids, families, and our state’s economy deserve.

Session isn’t over, and we still have work to do to protect the child care safety net this year. The Washington Legislature needs to finalize a budget that protects Washington’s child care and early learning safety net. If they don’t, children will lose critical early development opportunities and stable and caring relationships with providers. That’s time they can’t make up.

Tony Lozano is the Director of Lolitas Little Ones, a child care center in Pasco and is a member of Washington’s Early Learning Design Team.

This story was originally published March 1, 2026 at 5:00 AM.