Travis County to help low-income families pay for child care

AUSTIN, Texas — It’s Spanish only for the kids enrolled at Cielito Lindo Spanish Immersion Preschool. Maria Dominguez owns three Spanish immersion preschools in Travis County. 

“We focus on the social and emotional part of child development,” said Dominguez. 

The average cost of child care in Texas is $1,300 per month, and while Cielito Lindo offers scholarships, many families still can’t afford it. 

“Even for those kids that we do receive assistance, they’re not paying the full amount that we charge a month. We’re constantly trying to make up for that amount because, again, we still have to pay for a facility for teachers being able to provide competitive wages because they deserve it,” said Dominguez. 

Last week, Travis County voters approved Proposition A, a property tax increase which is expected to generate $75 million to create nearly 2,000 new child care slots and nearly 4,000 new after-school and summer programming slots for school-age children. But there are nearly $80,000 children on a waitlist for subsidized care in Texas with an estimated wait time of two years.  

Child care advocates suggest it will cost $90 million per year in state funding to get at least 10,000 kids off the waitlist. 

“We have seen voters say over and over again that this is a priority,” said David Feigen with Texans Care for Children.

During the last legislative session, lawmakers defeated a $2 billion proposal to step in and fund child care providers. And now that federal pandemic-era funds are gone, policy experts say state lawmakers need to act. 

“If we don’t provide this funding, we will see more parents leaving the workforce, more businesses struggling to recruit and retain staff, more children in low-quality settings,” said Feigen. 

Travis County Judge Andy Brown hopes the passage of proposition A sends a message to state leaders to act. 

“If we are figure out ways to provide that, like we’re doing here in Travis County, it’s going to help our economy,” said Brown. 

But some representatives expressed uncertainty about allocations this time around during an interim House hearing. 

“We don’t always know, in the environment, [if we] can keep funding going up because there are other priorities for our states,” said Republican Rep. Angie Chen Button.

The priority for child care providers will always be the kids.