A thousand more kids in Travis County will have access to affordable child care as early as December thanks to a new set of contracts the Travis County Commissioners Court approved with Workforce Solutions.
The first contract totals $17.3 million and is expected to create affordable child care scholarships for 1,000 kids, most of whom will be 3 and under. The scholarships will be available to families making at or below 85% of the state median income, which is $87,000 annually for a family of four.
Cristela Perez-Riddel, the program director of child care services at Workforce Solutions, said the scholarships are coming at a “crucial time” for the organization.
There are about 6,000 kids on Workforce Solutions’ waitlist for affordable childcare, and families spend an average of two years on it, Perez-Riddel said.
The scholarships will become available as early as December, and while the 1,000 new slots will only make a dent in the list, she said it’s a starting point.
“This is what we can feasibly do this first year,” she said. “I would love to see that waitlist go down to zero.”
The second contract county officials approved totals $4.1 million and will cover what the county calls “gap funding” — the difference between how much child care actually costs and how much the state reimburses local providers.
Tamitha Blackmon, who owns a local child care center called Nehemiah Christian School, said until now, providers have been forced to absorb that cost.
“Each day, hundreds of childcare providers open our doors and welcome children into a space that is safe, enriching, and fun,” Blackmon said. “The funding approved [Tuesday] will help close the gap and make sure those of us in the childcare community can continue doing what we love for years to come.”
The funding for the program, called Raising Travis County, comes from a tax rate increase county voters overwhelmingly supported last November. The county put the increase on the ballot following a 2024 report from the Texas Workforce Solution that found the Austin region has the most expensive child care in the state, averaging about $13,000 a year.
Raising Travis County is the first local, voter-approved affordable child care program in the state. Travis County Commissioner Jeff Travillion said it should be a model for how local communities can fund child care without adequate state resources.
“As the son of a teacher, I’ve always believed that the way we treat, train, and prepare our youth will define who we are,” Travillion said. “Amid chaos at the state and federal government, Raising Travis County is what can happen when local communities come together to find local solutions to problems.”
Travis County’s Health and Human Services Department will contract with a third-party evaluator to see if the program is leading to better staff retention, increased wages and higher capacity at child care centers. The department will also regularly update the commissioners court with data on how many children are being served and how many child care centers are participating.
This is the second wave of funding the commissioners court approved to make child care more accessible in the region. In August, the court approved funding to open free or low cost after school programs at 27 Austin-area schools.
County officials said more updates to the program will come in November.
