Cuts to state-funded preschool and child care programs concerned child care advocates, who worry that it will erase recent progress. (Getty Images)
Another member of Gov. Mike Braun’s administration pinned policy changes on former state leaders growing a child care and preschool subsidy program beyond its means.
Adam Alson, the director of the state’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning, paraphrased his boss, Mitch Roob, who recently said Braun had “inherited a mess” with the Family and Social Services Administration.
“One of those messes is with child care,” Alson told members of the Early Learning Advisory Committee on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Alson’s department announced it would cut preschool programming from 6,000 seats statewide to 2,500 total children, citing a need for financial sustainability. Additionally, rates for providers would fall and eligibility would be narrowed.
On My Way Pre-K will also be decoupled from the Child Care Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for impoverished families. The changes come after Holcomb’s administration introduced a waitlist for CCDF vouchers and OMWPK at the end of his term.
While millionaires and billionaires are getting more tuition assistance for the private schools their children already attend, working families are being told that pre-K for their 3- and 4-year-olds is too expensive for the state.
– Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne
As of Tuesday, more than 23,000 children are on the waiting list with a little over 60,000 children currently using both programs.
“Children were enrolled on CCDF vouchers throughout 2024 with really no plan to fund them,” said Alson about the prior administration, not naming former Gov. Eric Holcomb. “This is the situation that we find ourselves in.”
Alson added that the agency projected CCDF vouchers would fall from 70,000 to “somewhere between” 48,000 and 50,000 over the next few years due to reduced funding. The federal government sent Indiana $284 million in the current fiscal year for CCDF and is the main funding source for the program.
The General Assembly set aside $147.5 million in funding this year to maintain the current number of children using such vouchers but didn’t allocate enough to expand enrollment.
“Our first and foremost goal as an office and as an agency is to make sure that (kids losing vouchers) doesn’t happen and to manage our funding accordingly,” said Alson.
Prior to COVID-19, Alson’s department spent $200 million annually, peaking at $900 million in 2022 with temporary federal funds earmarked to help providers stay afloat through that period of economic uncertainty. Spending fell to roughly $650 million last year and is estimated to be closer to $600 million this year, according to Alson’s presentation.
Those limited federal dollars were used to expand enrollment in preschool and child care programming by 75% since 2021, Alson said, with the number of providers expanding by 20%. But state lawmakers directed dollars elsewhere in the 2025 budget-writing session, opting not to continue enhanced funding for the program after a dismal revenue forecast predicted Indiana would be short $2 billion in the next two years.
“We all recognized heading into this legislative session that we really needed the state to come through and make good on many of the changes that we had implemented over the last several years,” said Sam Snideman, the vice president of government relations for United Way of Central Indiana. “Unfortunately, the fiscal picture was what it was and things took cuts that we wish hadn’t been necessary.”
Indiana’s House Democrats, in a caucus release, noted that some of the most populous counties will see their providers’ rates fall by 50%, tying the cut in state funding for preschools to the Republican supermajority’s decision to fund universal “school choice” vouchers for the wealthiest Hoosiers.
“Working parents are already stretched thin. Now, they’re being told to do more with less — the theme of this administration. Cutting On My Way Pre-K means pulling the rug out from under hard-working families who were planning to use this program to make their household budget work,” said House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne.
“These cuts weren’t inevitable,” he continued. “In the 2025 budget, Statehouse Republicans chose to prioritize making private school vouchers universal. While millionaires and billionaires are getting more tuition assistance for the private schools their children already attend, working families are being told that pre-K for their 3- and 4-year-olds is too expensive for the state. That’s not budgeting — that’s bad priorities. Amid a budget shortfall, Statehouse Republicans found the money to expand a program that they cared about. It just wasn’t the program that benefits families struggling to get by.”
The state of Indiana’s child care
Advocates like Snideman, who is a member of the committee Alson presented to on Tuesday, worry that reducing the number of children getting state assistance will undo recent progress to expand options for parents.
Data from Brighter Futures Indiana, a partnership between the state and Early Learning Indiana, estimates that 328,271 Hoosier children under the age of 6 may need care in addition to 173,529 schoolchildren.
But the state’s 4,000-plus programs only have the capacity to serve just under 200,000 children. That doesn’t consider whether the program will be high-quality enough to impact a child’s learning outcomes — though early education is tied to better reading scores, another hurdle for Indiana’s children. Nor does this metric consider affordability, which disproportionately shuts women out of the workforce.
In Tuesday’s meeting, Alson explicitly acknowledged the “duplicative” impact of child care and preschool programming for families and communities, noting that parents can’t work without child care options.
“We know that (the current supply is) not enough. There’s more to be done out there for child care,” Alson said.
But reducing enrollment and paring down on payments to providers and families will impact the state’s economy and reduce opportunities for parents — especially those with younger children — Snideman observed.
“That’s going to mean potentially thousands of children who need care now won’t get it. Or they’ll get part-time pre-K or part-time care when they need full-time care,” Snideman said. “… when families don’t have the resources that they need, they are going to rightly prioritize their household’s stability.”
Provider cuts, in particular, could bring “an era of potential instability” for Indiana’s caretakers, he added. State officials said some providers have opted out of the state’s voucher programming.
Tuesday’s meeting offered a ray of hope, albeit slim, for child care advocates like Snideman, with an update on so-called microcenter pilots, which serve 30 or fewer children. Three such programs have begun operating with another set to open its doors this summer.
Such facilities depend on a hub and spoke model, where administrative duties are handled by one main office and caregiving buildings can be smaller. Some devote only a sliver of a building to child care and share their space with restaurants or other businesses.
The aim of the pilot is to lower regulatory hurdles for child care providers without jeopardizing safety, coupled with the ability to open such centers in rural, hard-to-serve areas.
“I do think that it has the potential to be a really impactful program,” said Snideman. “I also will stress that we need to be diligent about collecting the right data and we need to be diligent about making sure that we use this as a genuine learning opportunity.”