Early Care and Education State Budget Actions FY 2014

NCSL surveyed 20 state legislative fiscal offices in May 2014 on their FY 2014 and FY 2015 state appropriations for various early care and education programs—child care, prekindergarten, home visiting and other related programs.

States were selected based on geographic representation, legislative partisan composition, participation in previous surveys and state legislatures' level of legislative involvement in setting the early care and education funding landscape.

Key findings From the Survey and Report

Overall, state appropriations to early care and education increased by 3.8 percent ($368.8 million). Appropriations increased across all four categories (see table), with prekindergarten appropriations seeing the largest increase between FY 2014 and FY 2015. Findings by category are:

• Prekindergarten state appropriation increased by nearly $275 million for 13 of the 19 states that responded to the survey. Four states reported level funding between FY 2014 and FY 2015 while only two states reported minor reductions in their state prekindergarten appropriations.
• Child care appropriations remained stable between FY 2014 and FY 2015 for the combined 20 states. Two states reported stable appropriations, 11 states reported appropriation increases and seven states reported reductions.
• Home visiting appropriations increased slightly by 2 percent (approximately $6.5 million) across the 20 states. Appropriations remained stable in five states, increased in nine states and decreased in six states between FY 2014 and FY 2015.
• Appropriations for other state early care and education initiatives such as early intervention, parent support and early literacy increased overall by 4.1 percent between FY 2014 and FY 2015. Only three states reported minor decreases in overall funding in this category.