[Updated 10/12/22]

The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) has proposed a 2023–25 budget that would increase its general fund–state (GFS) spending by $1.270 billion (57.3%). The increase represents 8.1% of total GFS requests made by agencies. Only public schools and the Department of Social and Health Services requested larger increases in GFS spending—and they are much larger agencies to begin with. DCYF estimates that the $1.270 billion in increased spending for 2023–25 would increase spending by $1.966 billion in 2025–27. (For an overview of the agency budget requests, see here.)

Carry-forward and maintenance level GFS changes total $591.9 million and policy level changes add $677.7 million. (Note that DCYF does not include any estimate of caseload changes.)

At the maintenance level, the request shows the continued cost of the Fair Start for Kids Act. Enacted in 2021, the bill made enhancements to child care and early learning. As I described here, the bill was funded in 2021–23 mainly with $310.2 million in federal relief dollars. At the time, the GFS cost was expected to increase from $9.0 million in 2021–23 to $303.4 million in 2023–25. Moreover, many provisions of the bill are not fully implemented until after 2023–25. DCYF’s 2023–25 budget request shows that the bill is expected to increase GFS spending by $360.2 million in 2023–25 and by $980.8 million in 2025–27.

On top of that, new policy proposals from DCYF (in terms of the GFS) include:

• $298.3 million in 2023–25 and $384.7 million in 2025–27 to “standardize care, simplify the family and provider experience, and expand eligibility to those who need early learning services most.”
• $236.8 million in 2023–25 and $250.4 million in 2025–27 to “increase accessibility and affordability of child care services.”
• $47.4 million in 2023–25 and $126.7 million in 2025–27 to “support kinship caregivers and family foster homes to meet the needs of children and youth in foster care.”

Additionally, the budget request includes $2.6 million in 2023–25 and $568,000 in 2025–27 to provide “an interim non-IT solution to help track payment details back to the child level data.” This is related to federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) grants. It is in response to the State Auditor’s Office (SAO) finding (in the FY 2021 federal single audit) that DCYF “did not have adequate internal controls over and did not comply with requirements to ensure payments to child care providers for the CCDF programs were allowable and properly supported.” The SAO questioned $271.4 million in program costs (see page 270 here).

DCYF was established in 2017. Prior to the 2017–19 biennium, some of its programs had been housed in the Department of Social and Health Services and the Department of Early Learning. In the chart below, I include the spending on those programs for the earlier biennia. Under the agency’s request, GFS spending would increase by 57.3% in 2023–25 and the maintenance level of the request would increase spending by another 56.4% 18.1% in 2025–27.