OLYMPIA, WA – Legislation to help address Washington state’s childcare crisis has been signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson.
House Bill 1648 pushes out requirements for childcare providers and staff, recognizing “experience-based competency, and removing unnecessary barriers that push skilled professionals out of the workforce,” noted a news release emailed to The Center Square.
Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, has been working with childcare providers in his district for several years, and sponsored the legislation.
“If we go back to 2015, we have the Early Start Act, which I voted for because I really believe that early learning is important,” said Dent in an interview with The Center Square.
Dent explained the resulting problem is with burdensome rules and regulations put on the industry as a result of the Early Start Act, which have translated to a workforce shortage, further exacerbating the childcare crisis across Washington state.
The idea was to ensure childcare center staff are equipped with resources to offer early learning standards.
According to the Washington Department of Children Youth and Families, the Early Start Act mandated that DCYF “update our WAC so that the early learning system has a unified set of regulations that are easy to understand by providers. The Act has numerous strong mandates for supporting diverse providers and families, with a focus on racial equity.
“They put so many regulations on these folks and what they have to meet in order to work in a childcare early learning facility that they’re losing much of their workforce,” said Dent. “We’re losing people because many of them don’t want to go to school. They have the ability to teach these kids … so instead of having a bunch of folks over at DCYF tell us what they need to do and what requirements these people need to meet, maybe we should ask the people what they think they need, OK?” said Dent.
The bill requires DCYF to convene a stakeholder group to assist in identifying strategies to improve staff qualification requirements and verification processes and report to the Legislature by Dec. 1, 2026.
It extends the timeline for childcare providers to complete staff qualification requirements to at least Aug. 1, 2030, and provides that five years of cumulative work experience in licensed childcare qualifies as a demonstration of experience-based competency in fulfilling staff qualification requirements.
“So, we can keep our childcare facilities up and running and doing the early learning thing,” said Dent. “Without our childcare centers, we don’t have an early learning program. It’s that simple since they’re the ones that do it.”
Dent said he didn’t get everything he wanted in the bill, but was happy to see it cross the finish line.
“This bill came from the childcare industry, and they worked on this with me for a couple of years. I mean, last year we didn’t move it at all, so we rewrote it, and we did get it to move this year. We got about half of what we wanted, but that’s more than we have, so we will take it,” he said.
According to a recent study, the average annual cost of infant care in Washington is $20,370 — that’s about $1,698 per month.
The bill takes effect on July 27, 2025.
