Most of what we write about child care policy happens in Washington: a proposed Head Start rule, a tax deduction for early educators, federal relief money that ran out. But some of the most direct decisions about child care are made much closer to home, by voters, on a local ballot.
Election Day is November 3, and at least two communities will vote on dedicated local funding for early childhood. They take very different approaches, which makes them worth reading side by side.
San Antonio: Proposition A
San Antonio has had a voter-funded pre-K program for more than a decade. Pre-K 4 SA is paid for by a dedicated one-eighth-cent sales tax that voters first approved in 2012 and renewed in 2020 with about 73 percent of the vote. The current authorization runs through June 2029.
Proposition A would extend that tax for another 20 years, through 2049. It is the longest term the program has ever asked for; earlier authorizations ran eight years. The city council voted 7-2 in August to put it on the ballot.
Pre-K 4 SA runs four education centers serving about 2,000 children a year, and supports thousands more through partner schools and child care centers. The extension would let it go beyond four-year-olds: more classrooms for three-year-olds, infant and toddler care, stronger partnerships with local providers, and support for the early childhood workforce.
The case for: a 20-year horizon lets the program plan long term and buy buildings instead of leasing them; it currently leases two of its four centers. Voters have approved the tax twice before.
The case against: the two council members who voted no said they support the program but objected to committing a tax for two decades without a detailed plan for the money. Others have asked why the vote is happening now, when the current funding doesn't expire until 2029.
Boulder County, Colorado: a new property tax
Boulder County is starting from scratch. County commissioners voted unanimously in July to refer a new property tax of 2.579 mills to voters. The county estimates it would raise about $30 million a year starting in 2027 and cost roughly $115 a year on a $725,000 home. It has no end date.
The money would go to three things:
- Lowering costs for families, through tuition help for households earning up to $150,000 a year
- Adding capacity, especially infant and toddler slots, where waitlists are longest
- Raising pay and keeping staff, through retention and workforce grants
Administrative costs would be capped at 10 percent. The coalition backing it, Brighter Start Boulder County, says infant and toddler care there costs $20,000 to $23,000 a year per child. Neighboring Larimer County passed a similar measure last year with 51 percent of the vote.
The case for: infant care costs more than many families can absorb, providers struggle to open infant rooms at prices families can pay, and local advocates say enrollment in the county's child care assistance program has been frozen for about two years.
The concerns: no organized opposition campaign had formed as of September, but the measure is a permanent tax increase, and it falls on property owners whether or not they use child care.
What the two have in common
Strip away the details and both measures are trying to solve the same problem from the same end: paying the people who do the work. One goes about it through a public pre-K program with its own teachers. The other subsidizes the existing private and nonprofit market. Both explicitly fund the workforce, because that is where the system keeps breaking. We wrote last week about research showing only 56 percent of early educators in eight states were still working in the field two years later, and both measures are, in part, a response to that.
They are also a sign of where the action is. With federal child care funding largely flat, communities that want more seats and better-paid teachers are increasingly asking local voters to pay for them directly.
If you vote in one of these places
We don't tell anyone how to vote. We would ask that you read the full ballot language before you do, because the summary on a yard sign is never the whole measure. Both are short enough to read in a few minutes, and both are posted by the local elections office.
And wherever you live, it is worth checking your own sample ballot. Child care and pre-K measures are often local, often low on the ballot, and easy to skip. A few minutes of reading is the least the people caring for your community's youngest children deserve.
