About Proposition 5

Every child deserves to be safe, healthy, with the opportunity to thrive. Research shows that 90% of a child’s brain develops by age five. This critical time lays the foundation for all the years that follow. Today fewer than half of Whatcom’s children enter kindergarten ready to learn. The Healthy Children’s Fund is a dedicated, flexible, and accountable local fund that will expand high-quality, affordable early learning and child care to help children of all backgrounds enter kindergarten ready to learn. It will fund targeted programs to help vulnerable children, including homeless and at-risk children, through early intervention, homelessness prevention, mental health support, and other strategies.      

Proposition 5 helps children, families, businesses, the community

When we invest in healthy children, everyone in our community benefits. Investing in early education pays off with higher graduation rates, reductions in crime and incarceration rates, and lower healthcare costs. The Healthy Children’s Fund will help both families and businesses in Whatcom County by increasing access to affordable, quality child care opportunities throughout our community. 

Further, the Healthy Children’s Fund will help vulnerable and at-risk children and their families through increased housing stability, prenatal and early parenting support, and access to behavioral and mental health services, when and how they need them.

Proposition 5 is roughly $95 per household per year

If Whatcom County voters say “yes” in November 2022, the Healthy Children’s Fund will raise about $8.2M per year countywide through a property tax of $0.19 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, or about $95 per household per year, or $7.92 per month. 

Example: If your assessed home value on your Whatcom County property tax statement is $481,000, you would pay $7.62 per month towards the Healthy Children’s Fund. 

Property owners pay taxes every year in proportion to the assessed value of their property. If passed by the voters, property owners in Whatcom County would pay into the Healthy Children’s Fund at the rate of $84.19 per year for the median homeowner with an assessed value of $443,000 (assessed value is typically far less than market value).     

Every child deserves a healthy start in life 

Every child deserves a healthy start. For many families, a healthy start means access to high-quality, affordable, safe early education and childcare, regardless of where they live or their family background.   In Whatcom County, we have roughly 5,000 fewer child care spots than parents need—and those we have are often not in the right place or the hours don’t meet the needs of working parents. 

Businesses benefit when parents have access to childcare that fits their needs

88% of Whatcom County businesses have reported their employees have to miss work or cut hours short because they struggle to find childcare. When parents can’t find child care, they can’t get back to work. More childcare slots will help local businesses address the labor shortage and recover our economy.   

High-quality early education prepares kids for a happier life

Kindergarten readiness is a key measure of success in life. Today, only 46% of students in Whatcom County, and only 25% of our children of color, enter kindergarten fully ready to learn. Studies show that kids who go to high quality preschool are more likely to read proficiently by the third grade, and more likely to graduate and be successful in life.      

The Healthy Children’s Fund supports programs for vulnerable children, much-needed mental healthcare, and interim housing to help families avoid homelessness

Preserve and Expand Quality Child Care Spots:

Today most early education and childcare workers make minimum wage; less than $30,000 a year on average. This Fund would increase wages and allow Whatcom County to attract and retain high quality providers for our children.      

Support for Vulnerable, at-risk families:  

We all know services aren’t keeping up with demand in Whatcom. This Fund will focus on training opportunities and support for new families, expanding mental health services for pregnant parents and families with young kids, and will provide interim housing services to get families back on their feet.         

The Healthy Children’s Fund will have tough fiscal accountability: money will be used effectively and as promised, with independent audits and full disclosure.

The Healthy Children’s Fund includes strict accountability rules and can only be used for early childhood education, childcare services, and support for new parents in Whatcom County. This fund will be managed and tracked by Whatcom County, with budget oversight by the Whatcom County Council, following the direction set by the voters, with program oversight, recommendations, and evaluation by a community board. 

There will be an independent audit to collect, review, and share progress towards goals.

User Submitted questions get reviewed regularly and responses are sent within 3 days (often sooner). User Submitted questions will be added here! Form to submit a question is at the bottom of this page.

Tell us more about how the money is going to be spent, where, what the administrative costs and resource requirements are going to be, and how the program is going to be measured so we know if it’s working or not.

Much of this detail is included in the ordinance that outlines the legal mandates and scope of the Healthy Children’s Fund. The administrative costs are capped at 9%, but 3% of that is set aside for the external, professional evaluation that will happen every other year. Professional evaluators work with a variety of programs across the country to examine exactly what the impact is of different programs and interventions. No other fund in Whatcom County is required to have this level of examination, and the drafters are especially excited about this feature because it will allow taxpayers and the public to know exactly how funds have been used and what the outcomes and impacts have been - for example, are we seeing kindergarten-readiness increase? How many more childcare slots are available? How many more parents are participating in the workforce? Etc.

How the Fund gets allocated is subject to a bi-annual Implementation Plan that, as a requirement of the Proposition language, will be updated regularly using outcome data from audits plus stakeholder feedback. The first plan is due to our County Council for approval in March 2023. This approach allows the Fund to be flexible and adaptable, while also being subject to tough accountability mechanisms to ensure it is performing as intended by the community.

Here is one example of how this will work. One of our biggest goals is to increase Kindergarten readiness. We do this by expanding early learning and childcare in the next 2-3 years through three actions - and this is being planned for currently, should this pass:

1. Opening new centers across Whatcom County. We envision a “hub and spoke” approach with centers in the areas of highest need like Blaine, North Bellingham and East County. These centers will also support small in-home providers with such things as shared administrative services, helping to navigate licensing, professional development for staff, resources, referrals, or connecting smaller providers with the behavioral mental services that will also be funded.

2. Investing in the workforce. A pilot project of wage increases for the workforce. We aim to bring our minimum wage childcare workers up to a stable minimum standard of living to increase retention of talented, experienced staff.

3. Small capital grants for facilities. Sometimes a provider just needs a new sink installed, a door to be wider, or a new playground to serve more children and this helps them do that. 

For more information for now, you are welcome to also contact the Whatcom Child Care Coalition at Meredithmhayes@gmail.com

Who are the local childcare providers? Franchise operators, in-home providers closer to rural communities, church daycares? What providers are excluded? Is this in addition to the $4 million in ARPA funds that child care operators are supposed to receive? Will participating in this program prevent having subsidy assistance for the Fair Starts for Kids Act benefit? Will the money you receive from property taxes be in addition to the $29.8 million spent annually for Family/Child Wellness in Whatcom County?

These are great questions! Thank you for asking! Let me take them one by one.

1. There are a variety of local child care providers – none of them will be required to apply for these funds, though they will be invited and welcome. This measure does not list providers one way or another because the intent is to work with any provider to help expand childcare. Examples could include larger, center-based care, or smaller in-home providers – and yes, those you list would be included.

2. The Healthy Children’s Fund was designed to support the one-time ARPA investments that may be allocated to stabilizing childcare, as a result of the impacts of the pandemic. So none of these funds would be duplicated by ARPA dollars – and in fact, much of the ARPA dollars that have been pledged to childcare are for larger capital projects – but do not include ongoing supports for workforce investment or operations. This is where the Healthy Children’s Fund will make a big impact.

3. The Healthy Children’s Fund is designed to complement Fair Starts for Kids – it will not prevent subsidy assistance – it is actually designed to leverage it. One thing we run into is that even with a subsidy, families cannot find a slot for their child. We know we are 5,000 slots short in Whatcom County – so with the Healthy Children’s Fund focused on expanding supply, this should help all families looking for care, including those who are eligible for subsidies.

4. If you read the report on the 29.8 million spent on Family/Child Wellness, you’ll see that the large majority of those funds are restricted to their purpose, and that the need far outstrips the resources. That is one of many reasons why we need to establish a LOCAL, flexible, dedicated funding source. You’ll also find in the report that none of those funds go toward child-care. And less than 2% of the County’s Budget goes toward Family and Child Wellness, and it’s mostly to fund a great program called the Nurse-Family Partnership. This is astounding when we look at how effective prevention dollars are, and that 50% of the County budget goes toward public safety, or our crisis-response and downstream impacts of not investing in children in families. The large majority of the funds reported on go toward housing vouchers and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) – both of which are federally funded and highly restricted in their use. 

Doesn’t WA State already have free universal preschool?

With the recent expansion of Transitional Kindergarten, some districts offer free pre-Kindergarten for children who have not been in an early learning setting. This is an effort to provide an even start for kids beginning in Kindergarten. The development of the transitional kindergarten exemplifies why the Healthy Children’s Fund provides enough flexibility to leverage state and federal initiatives.

There are significant limitations to this new program that will be addressed by The Healthy Children’s Fund, if passed. A few include:

1) Not all districts in Whatcom are offering Transitional Kindergarten. So this is not consistently available for all children.

2) This program does not provide full day care for children, nor does it provide year-round care. This creates problematic gaps in care that current providers don’t have the capacity to fill.

3) This expansion of Transitional Kindergarten is a great example of state public policy addressing gaps, but also how that can create unintended consequences at the local level. This is destabilizing the local preschool market in a way that will increase costs for infant/toddler care, and will leave young children without care for working families, further deepening disparities.

The Healthy Children's Fund Implementation Plan will include policy and funding strategies to leverage these transitional kindergarten programs at the same time, will stabilize the market for programs that will meet the broader needs of children in our communities.

How many preschools do you budget that you will be able to open, and for how many children total? How much of the budget goes into the building of preschool/other structures, versus budget for hiring and maintaining each preschool? What is the proposed wage range of preschool teachers you will have positions for? Will the preschools be just for economically disadvantaged children and if so, what is the income threshold?

We have a shortage of 5,000 child care slots. In order to meet that need, we will need infant/toddler classrooms, preschools, licensed family homes, and many more options for parents! Fund administrators will have to make investments in capital projects (building new buildings and retrofitting existing buildings), staff recruitment/retention programs, encouraging more mental health providers to serve young children, and so many more. There is a whole team at work creating the Implementation Plan that will set targets for years 1&2, and some of those targets will be set regionally (generally speaking, we define 3 regions in Whatcom: NW Whatcom; East County, and Bellingham). To meet those regional targets, there will have to be some collaboration with other funds specifically related to capital expenses like Early Learning Facilities grants.

Prop 5 will expand child care for kids within families of all income levels. All children and families need access to care and mixed income classes are really important so no, there is nothing in the proposition that limits funds for low-income children, or any other sub-group. Support for vulnerable children (homeless prevention, early parenting supports, etc.) may be based on income eligibility or some other type, but that has not been determined yet.   

Are there income and bonus limits set for administrators of the fund? If not, I believe there should be. Also, what are the proposed incomes of the preschool teachers themselves? I remain concerned about possible corruption during implementation, specifically with payouts to building contractors and administrators. My hope is that preschool teachers will be decently paid though. 

We wrote in a limit of 9% for fund administration, with up to 3% of that to be used for external evaluation of the funds, to ensure taxpayers are getting the impact and outcomes we are paying and asking for. It isn't customary for fund administrators to receive bonuses or payouts and our ordinance did not write allowance of those into this.

Also, the ordinance does not mandate a level of income for preschool teachers, though does mandate investment into the workforce. Wage pilots are part of the first year's plan for implementation - this would be done through a robust and transparent RFP process, so corruption would be nearly impossible, especially with the requirement for biannual audits of funds and impacts. We made sure to write in requirements for transparency, reporting, community involvement and oversight, and utmost accountability to the funds in every way possible.

I have been asking for years for public support for childcare. This is wonderful! I am wondering about the distribution of the funding. Childcare worker’s wages are terribly low, plus no benefits. Grants are wonderful but in order to give staff raises we need consistent funding. This is a huge problem in keeping staff. Even when we hire someone, they wait for K-12 positions to open up and end up leaving childcare to K-12 jobs with higher wages, benefits, summers off, etc. Will this funding make it possible for us to offer the same wages and benefits as K-12? On a consistent basis? The years before kindergarten are extremely important for a child’s success in school and beyond… in our childcare, we have just now condensed into 2 classrooms instead of 3 because of a lack of trained staff answering our ads for hire. Just in the last couple of months we have lost 2 of our best teachers to K-12. In order to support their families they HAVE to get into K-12 funding! Please advise.

Hi! Haven’t we all been waiting for the right time to put a public child care investments to voters?!? I agree, Now is the time to do it! There will always be a reason not to, so we just have to jump on the opportunity in front of us!

Yes! All the thoughtful points you make are exactly why we have created the fund in the way that we have. We need a sustainable funding stream for at least 10 years to be committed to investments into programs and staff like increasing wages. We created “buckets” of work that will absolutely be consistent over time (affordability, accessibility, professional workforce, and quality) but the specific spending plan will be developed at least every 2 years, allowing for flexibility to respond to the changing state and federal landscape.

All that to say… yes, funding will be available for 10 years and is anticipated to be allocated to providers based on applications for much of the fund, but also include some county-wide interventions like wage subsidies, or creating (or expanding) scholarship pools for certification and training courses. That should create attainable ways to address specific needs of programs, while also solving persistent problems that impact all programs across the county, or at least regions within the county.

The goal is definitely to have more parity between ECE and K12. K12 teachers in Whatcom make 105% of state average of teacher salaries and ECE teachers have wages in the 3rd percentile. That is problematic for all the reasons we both know. The goal is definitely to get close to k12 educators, although we imagine it would take time and investments at the state/federal level to get all the way there, and we are prepared to advocate for that to happen.

Lots more work to do to get this money out to programs once the fund passes, but we’re all committed to seeing this through, and the Child Care Coalition will continue to convene to help the county and programs meet the goals set forth!   

What is the mechanism for increasing wages? Will for-profit businesses apply to the county to supplement their wages? What “training opportunities and supports” will be provided? Are non-profits being hired to provide this? Consultants? Does “interim-housing services” include rent vouchers and/or expanding shelter services? Will organizational recipients and grant amounts be publicly posted? Will disaggregated demographic information about beneficiaries be available? Is there a duration of the fund or is this just a new tax in perpetuity?

The actual ordinance is attached to this email (linked here for website), with many of the specifics you are looking for embedded. Because child care is a complex landscape, with interventions at the state level as well, we wrote the legislation with flexibility to respond to a developing landscape, but with accountability, transparency, and oversight requirements to ensure the goals of increasing kindergarten readiness, increasing child-care slots, etc. are met.

The strategies in the ordinance can fund a range of programs that providers can apply for, and receive funding, so that programs of all types can meet the diverse needs of children and families. Families across the county, and even within the same neighborhoods, want options of programs. Licensed family homes, large centers, preschool programs, are just a few of the types of programs that will be expanded to meet the needs.

Housing and mental health services will follow the needs of children as well. The goal of the measure is prevention, to reduce the number of children entering into the homeless system. Therefore, it should not be used to fund shelters. If children are in shelters, that means it’s not working.

The key will be in tracking interventions that work, using data that can drive improvements in the programs and the fund administration. There is a requirement for transparency and accountability to community groups that have committed to holding the county accountable, as well as community constituents. All information about grantees should be available, and easily accessible, In order to measure progress towards improving outcomes. Demographic data will be available to measure how effective strategies are at reducing disparities where they exist, and increasing outcomes for all children.

The fund sunsets in 10 years, and has a biannual evaluation to make sure that we know if it’s working well before the 10 year sunset and can adjust throughout as needed.

Thanks for your interest. Your questions indicate that you are engaged and have a lot of insight into these complex issues. If you’d like to connect to discuss any of this or have further questions let me know.

Will this initiative require establishing a new office to administer the program and what would that look like?

This initiative does not require establishing a new office to administer the program. Currently the Health Department is the designated fund administrator - our understanding from their leadership is that they plan to hire a Child Care specialist, a data analyst, and a contract manager to support getting these funds into the community. The administration rate is capped overall at 9%, but up to 3% is required for an external evaluation. The majority of these funds will go out to community providers.

I am wondering about any effort toward providing childcare facilities in the communities that families live in. I am in Everson and there are very few childcare options besides hearing of a friend of a friend or on Facebook that a local mom will watch your child. If childcare facilities are located regionally it will allow kids to grow up in the community they live in and will go to school in. It may also give families more time together as they will have to travel less for childcare reasons.

Our answer is - Yes! This is exactly why this needs to be a county-wide, public initiative. We understand the lack of child care that is accessible for our neighbors in more rural parts of the county is especially bleak. Child care needs to be meeting the diverse and unique needs of families and that includes having options near where you live and work. If funded, this can incentivize current programs and services to expand into underserved parts of the county like Everson, and more importantly, can support community members across the county to offer care in the community in which they live!

Armed with data that demonstrates where care is and isn’t, and where programs are meeting the needs of families, and aren’t, fund administrators will be able to target funds towards reducing those disparities.

This is why we need a county-wide approach, and accountability to ALL parts of our community.