By Alison May

State appropriations to early care and education increased by 3.8 percent in fiscal year 2014, according to preliminary findings from NCSL's annual survey of state legislative fiscal offices.

For the past five years, NCSL’s Early Care and Education project staff have conducted a yearly survey of state legislative fiscal offices on their fiscal year state appropriations for various early care and education programs, including child care, prekindergarten, home visiting and other innovative early childhood initiatives.

In May 2014, NCSL surveyed 20 state legislative fiscal offices and the preliminary findings indicate that state appropriations to early care and education increased in FY 2014 by 3.8 percent ($368.8 million). The full report will be available in October.

Between FY 2014 and FY 2015, appropriations increased across all four categories included in the survey. Prekindergarten appropriations saw the largest increase.

Interested in previous state budget actions in Early Care and Education?

We invite you to read FY 2013 and FY 2011, the last two years for which data are available. You might find it interesting that in FY 2013 there was a slight increase overall to early care and education state appropriations by $127 million or 1.5 percent.

The full report once available can be found by visiting Early Care and Education State Budget Actions FY 2014.    

Alison May is a staff coordinator in NCSL’s Children and Families program.