A bill to fund New Mexico’s lofty goal of extending free child care to all families appears to be on the fast track to the governor’s desk after the House amended and signed off on the bill.
The chamber passed Senate Bill 241 on a 37-19 vote Tuesday evening after the key House Appropriations and Finance Committee voted overnight to cut the amount the state could pull in coming years from the roughly
$11 billion early child trust fund to
$700 million from an originally proposed $1 billion. That move was lauded by supporters as a way of ensuring the permanent fund’s stability.
The bill now also contains requirements for child care facilities to implement New Mexico’s wage and career ladder for early childhood workers, which would bring improved pay and professional advancement opportunities to those employees.
“Senate Bill 241 ensures New Mexico’s historic, family-centered universal child care program can grow responsibly while remaining aligned with legislative intent,” said Early Childhood Department Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky during the committee meeting.
The measure will return to the Senate, which will weigh the bill’s changes.
Funding New Mexico’s ambitious goal for universal child care became a topic of disagreement between legislators and the governor in recent weeks before both sides reached an agreement through SB 241 to tap the trust fund while also establishing backup funding mechanisms should the state’s economy experience a downturn.
The bill would also create guardrails designed to prioritize families with less means for state-subsidized child care slots. Some expressed concerns that allowing the state to extract $1 billion from the trust fund in the coming years was fiscally irresponsible and would negatively affect the long-term sustainability of the reserve.
This week’s amendment of the bill, said House Appropriations and Finance Committee budget director Amanda Breiding, would help ensure that sustainability.
“We’ve worked really closely with [the State Investment Council], with [the Legislative Finance Committee] to work on those projections, and that’s part of why I think this committee amended that number down — to make sure that the fund is stable,” she told lawmakers during the meeting.
SB 241 had also lost some support among early childhood workers and advocates, who worried lawmakers would drop an effort to improve pay through a wage and career ladder.
However, the committee’s passage of Dixon’s amendment appeared to have assuaged some of their concerns.
The amendment will “better solidify the ways in which home-based and center-based child care providers can receive better wages,” said Partnership for Community Action Executive Director Teresa Madrid during the committee meeting.
Republicans have opposed the bill throughout the process. Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, did say during the committee meeting the bill has improved.
However, she and other Republicans have expressed concerns over the sustainability of the initiative and that the state was investing too heavily in one program — universal child care — while leaving others behind.
“This is a launch of a universal entitlement program,” Dow said. “… It puts a very big strain on every other [services] that we also have to go back home and talk about.”