HOUSTON – Available and affordable childcare in Texas is crucial, according to Kim Kofran who is the Senior Director of the organization, Children at Risk.
“This is an everybody issue. This isn’t just those of us that have young children or middle school age kids that can’t be left at home. This is all of us,” said Kofran.
The need is becoming more evident after Deputy Constable Katherine Hutson and her 7-year-old daughter died in a crash. Investigators said an impaired driver hit her vehicle while she was working a second job doing traffic control for maintenance workers.
Sources tell KPRC 2 her daughter was with her, because she couldn’t find childcare. It is unclear of Hutson’s exact situation as to why she couldn’t find childcare, but Kofran said this is an ongoing problem for a lot of parents. Kofran said more funding is needed to improve childcare availability and affordability in the state.
“It really is going to take an influx of additional other dollars, too, to make this make that market work. And so is that, you know, that could be a combination of our current federal dollars that can be our state dollars, which we don’t put in currently. And then local dollars of how to support families and childcare,” said Kofran.
Children at Risk is among 120 organizations who are pushing for the legislation to improve childcare. A major concern is the childcare scholarship program’s long waitlist which is 78,000 children per day this year. Texas Representative Armando Walle said he is pushing for more funding during the January special session.
“You have to increase those salaries for those daycare staff workers. All of those take resources. What I plan to do is to help increase the budget for the subsidy to reduce those families that are on the waiting list,” said Walle.
Kofran said flexible childcare hours are also crucial for parents and first responders, like Hutson.
“We know we have childcare deserts across the state. When we look at just the, you know, typical Monday through Friday childcare. But those numbers are so much worse when we look at those nontraditional hours, those evening weekends, the overnight hours that we know we have a workforce that needs that,” said Kofran.
Kofran said Children at Risk also has bills in the works to advocate for better childcare in Texas.