HB 1979 by Reps. John Raney, Mihaela Plesa, and Benjamin Bumgarner — along with its Senate companion, SB 1844 by Sen. César Blanco — is one of the most important child care bills of the legislative session.
The bill will update regulations for Local Workforce Development Boards with the standards and supports needed to maximize child care funding, improve transparency, and enroll as many families as possible in high-quality child care.
Standards for Local Workforce Boards, which are charged with overseeing and implementing regional child care strategies, have not been meaningfully updated since the Texas Workforce Commission was initially created in 1995. This bill will better position communities to support families’ child care needs by ensuring there is meaningful child care expertise among board members, basic transparency in data, and needed flexibility in state-mandated performance targets. This bill addresses the Texas School Readiness Dashboard recommendation on the early childhood data system.
Learn more in the coalition one-pager on the bill: