Investments from Infancy

New Mexico voters' overwhelming approval of a constitutional amendment in 2022 opened doors to affordable child care for working families. Now, community advocates and legislators are looking at ways to strengthen early childhood care in the state, chief among them being workforce development and additional support for families and child care providers.

To hear some of those ideas, US Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) hosted a July 15 roundtable discussion on the topic with child care providers, educators and community leaders from the Albuquerque-based Partnership for Community Action organization.

At the roundtable, Heinrich promoted a proposed expansion to the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (which he co-sponsors) that would increase the maximum credit of $2,158 per child to $4,000.

"That gets at one of the fundamental challenges…without something like a child care tax credit, many parents just don't have the resources," Heinrich said. "It's not an easy problem, but it's not one we're going to solve by ignoring it…I think the tax credit is the most powerful economic tool that we have."

The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act would increase the maximum credit amount to $4,000 per child; automatically adjust it to keep pace with inflation; save money by phasing-out the credit for families making more than $400,000; and ensure low-income families can benefit from the tax credit by making it refundable, allowing families to receive up to $8,000 each.

All of those present at the roundtable praised the constitutional amendment, which guarantees families who earn up to 400% of the federal poverty level per year access to state child care assistance funds, and also shared their personal experiences with early childhood education in New Mexico.

Teresa Madrid, the PCA's director of programs and organizational learning, told SFR that prior to the passage of the constitutional amendment, the cost of child care for her two young children greatly impacted her life.

"I've always been a working mom, I've always paid for child care out-of-pocket…it impacted my abilities financially as well as my student loan burden," Madrid said, adding that her younger child's last day of child care before entering kindergarten was the day before the constitutional amendment went into effect.

"It was a really stark reminder of how that policy could have impacted my own personal finances and my life," she continued.

Lilian Carranza, a community organizer who immigrated to Albuquerque from Honduras eight years ago, said at the roundtable that she became impassioned to improve early childhood education in New Mexico by her autistic son, and added that she hopes to see resources provided for every child.

"We don't want to only serve ourselves," Carranza said in Spanish.

When discussing areas they hope to see improved, several advocates brought up the need for higher teacher pay, more training for early childhood teachers and a higher degree of financial support for child care providers.

Karen Meija, owner of the Albuquerque-based Avengers Learning Center, suggested that all early childhood education teachers should make "at least $18 an hour," (child care and preschool teachers in New Mexico currently earn averages of $9.10 and $12.82 per hour, respectively).

Madrid also noted increased wages as a major factor for improving early childhood education, adding that self-reported data from home-based child care providers estimates them earning $1-$3 per hour for their daily work.

"We're not talking about people who just babyist, we're talking about people who are caring for our youngest children, at their most vulnerable developmental stage," Madrid said. "To be able to get high-quality care, you have to pay people good wages. When people are struggling financially, it impacts the way that they can show up to care for children."

Madrid added that PCA is currently working with a network of home-based child care providers to discuss the possibility of creating a state-funded wage structure for child care providers.

In an interview with SFR, Heinrich said that the limitations child care facilities face in growing capacity have been largely financial, and that he believes giving these facilities more access to state funding and working with community financial institutions for access to more capital could help expand their capacities and serve more children.

"We're going to have to work through all of those things to make sure that we maximize how these businesses can grow over time," Heinrich said.

Noelani Charley, parent of a special-needs child, said she believes teachers need more support for training, especially in special education, to allow children with special needs to have access to the services they need.

"As a young parent, I feel that I have struggled constantly with access in general, and I think that matters a lot," Charley said. "As soon as I was able to get access to help with my son, it was the best thing for me."

Heinrich said he believes that "formalizing some of the professional development for child care center staff is something we ought to be able to figure out," to help more students arrive in kindergarten at the same learning level as their peers.

"It's really hard to catch up when one group of kids start with all the basics ready to go: letters, numbers, colors, socialization, they've been in a childcare setting for multiple years…and then you have kids who haven't had that benefit," Heinrich said. "We have to find a way to catch them up before they get into that first day of school, and that's what this is all about."

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