Montana Lawmakers Eye Child Care Challenges for the 2025 Session

At the start of the 2025 Montana Legislature, lawmakers are poised to debate an array of economic challenges facing parents and providers in the state’s beleaguered child care system.

Child care has become one of the most salient issues for Montana families and state leaders alike in recent years, with the average cost of such services far exceeding federal affordability benchmarks. Despite those high costs, providers tend to operate on razor-thin margins, making it hard to maintain adequate staffing levels and leaving workers to navigate an industry where pay is low and benefits such as health insurance are often nonexistent. Elected officials have attempted to remedy the problems, but stakeholders continue to stress the system is far from fixed.

One of the avenues Montana has historically used to make child care more affordable is the Best Beginnings scholarship. It’s a decades-old program that leverages state and federal funding to provide financial support for families based on their household income. During the 2023 Legislature, policymakers expanded Best Beginnings eligibility to families living at or below 185% of the federal poverty level, a benchmark child care advocates argue still puts assistance out of reach for some families in need.

Several organizations want to raise the income threshold to qualify for Best Beginnings to 85% of the state’s median income, the maximum federal regulations allow. Rep. Jonathan Karlen, D-Missoula, said that’s the exact thrust of one early proposal House Democrats, who are part of the minority party in the statehouse, hope to advance.

“Even our neighboring states, both North and South Dakota, have a higher income eligibility threshold than we do,” Karlen said, noting that North Dakota’s threshold is 75% of state median income while South Dakota requires families to earn less than 209% of the federal poverty rate to qualify. “What I hope other legislators will see is that what we’re shooting for is not like a liberal pipe dream. This is something that other states have done, if nothing else, as a way to support businesses.”

Best Beginnings is also taking shape as a vehicle to alleviate workforce challenges within the child care system. The Montana Department of Labor and Industry has estimated the average wage for child care workers in the state at just under $13 an hour. Low pay is often cited as a key factor in employees leaving the industry, and providers note the challenge of increasing wages without driving costs up even further for families. 

There’s already a plethora of proposals in the pipeline. The Helena-based nonprofit Zero to Five Montana, which focuses on increasing access to early childhood care and education, is tracking more than 250 requests for bill drafts. Draft bills focus on state-funded child care subsidies, child tax credits and other potential remedies to make child care more accessible and affordable for Montana families. 

Executive Director Caitlin Jensen told Montana Free Press that 93% of voters surveyed by her organization last year agreed child care costs are too high for many families. The state has estimated the average cost for a child under five is nearly $19,000 a year.

“There’s truly a recognition that there’s something broken with the child care system,” Jensen said.

Acknowledging that many child care workers struggle to afford services for their own children, the Montana Budget and Policy Center included in its proposed strategies for the 2025 session an expansion of Best Beginnings eligibility to all child care staff regardless of income. Zero to Five Montana’s latest policy agenda, which was based on feedback from its 2024 survey and a string of public panels in nine Montana communities, featured a similar recommendation. Karlen said a bill draft to the effect has already been requested.

One of the more ambitious goals still taking shape is to secure state funding to more directly address recruitment and retention of child care workers. Grace Decker, coordinator for the statewide coalition Montana Advocates for Children, said the plan would direct payments to providers with the caveat that funds be spent specifically on pay raises and benefits for employees, mirroring a series of now-expired federal pandemic-era stabilization grants.

“The child care crisis is really about the fact that we can’t recruit and retain workers in child care programs,” Decker said, “and that’s about compensation.”  

Legislators on both sides of the aisle have submitted dozens of broader bill requests that could be used to shepherd other tweaks and changes to Montana’s child care statutes. Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, has asked for a draft proposal establishing a state child care trust fund, which he said could, through grants or loans, help establish additional child care options around the state. Details of the proposal will likely take shape as the session proceeds.

Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte has expressed interest in further exploring the role regulatory revisions, paid apprenticeships and other work-based learning opportunities can play in addressing workforce issues. In an email to MTFP, spokesperson Kaitlin Price cited the Department of Public Health and Human Services’ work in recent years to identify barriers in licensing and registration that have made it more difficult for providers to meet demand. Price noted one potential change highlighted by the agency would be to lower the age for teachers in child care centers from 18 to 16 to allow more qualified Montanans to enter the profession.

“This session, the governor will consider any bill that makes it to his desk and looks forward to working with legislators to continue to cut red tape and increase access to child care for all Montana families,” Price wrote, describing child care as a “top priority” for the governor and the “workforce behind the workforce.” 

What is clear for Jensen and other advocates is the increased appetite among lawmakers to tackle an issue that directly impacts families, workers and businesses. The child care industry has already been the subject of considerable state-level debate over the past year, from the contentious back-and-forth over new agency regulations to a seismic shift in state-contracted services for families and providers, and Jensen said she’s confident public pressure will help keep the issue forefront as the Legislature wrestles with a myriad of other funding priorities.

“We’re really hopeful that because there’s so many bills already that we can just keep supporting legislators in understanding how much of a positive impact this would have on our entire state, our state’s economy,” Jensen said.

This story originally appeared in the Montana Free Press, which can be found online at montanafreepress.org.