Fresno Councilmember Maxwell looking for millions to help you with ‘disastrous’ childcare costs

Fresno City Councilmember Tyler Maxwell on Monday morning unveiled a two-pronged plan to address high childcare costs in the city, an issue he said “is nothing short of disastrous” and is “the No. 1 issue” brought up by his constituents.

Maxwell said he wants to allocate “millions of dollars” toward a one-year pilot program in the city to provide grants for local businesses and families, in the hopes of addressing issues with residents’ accessibility and affordability to local childcare services. 

The city will partner with First 5 Fresno County to help identify ways to disburse the money to local residents and businesses as a “short-term solution” to help alleviate the costs of childcare. 

The city has already invested “half a billion dollars” toward other local issues like homelessness, crime and local poverty, he said. He acknowledged that the city is still dealing with these issues, and that he views the new program as an extension toward solving those problems. 

“As a city, we cannot keep expecting to throw money at these issues on the back end alone and expect them to be eradicated,” Maxwell said.

Fabiola Gonzalez, executive director of the First 5 Fresno County, said that she “commends” Maxwell’s leadership.

“Child care is the invisible scaffolding of the global economy,” Gonzalez told Fresnoland in a statement. “We recognize it takes partnership to prioritize child care as a public good and we are excited at the opportunity to partner with the City of Fresno and be able to leverage our expertise in managing public funds to support local child care providers and Fresno families raising children today, in a new way.”

Linda Gleason, director of Fresno County’s Cradle to Career, a coalition of local organizations hoping to help young children achieve economic mobility, said she was proud to be among the many partners that were a part of the policy crafting process. 

“Across our partnership, we consistently hear that childcare is one of the biggest barriers preventing parents from fully participating in the workforce, pursuing education, and achieving economic stability,” Gleason said in a statement sent to Fresnoland.

“Affordable, reliable childcare is not a luxury,” Gleason later added. “It is essential infrastructure that supports working families, strengthens economic stability, and helps ensure children have the strong start they deserve.”

Among the groups that Maxwell and his office worked with on this policy are First 5, the Central Valley Children’s Services Network and the Fresno County Superintendent of School Early Care and Education Department, according to Gleason. 

During Monday’s news conference, the Youth Leadership Insitutue was erroneously identified as a colloborator on the draft poilicy, but on Tuesday clarified their group’s position.

“Youth Leadership Institute enthusiastically supports public investment in any efforts that support young people and our communities, including childcare services. While we are not currently a partner in Councilmember Maxwell’s proposal, we appreciate his desire to improve services for Fresno families. We would welcome the opportunity to provide youth perspectives and input on any proposal. Our young people were a catalyst in the community movement that resulted in Measure P and we remain committed to those funds being used for the voter-approved purposes of parks, trails and arts and culture and not for any childcare services.”

The councilmember said he envisions new providers using the grant money to ease the financial burdens that comes with opening a new business, and existing organizations using the funding to help subsidize costs to existing facilities.

Maxwell also said families that apply for the funding could use the money like a “scholarship” to help fund the costs of childcare, “whether that’s with care at a facility or with a family member, friend or neighbor.” 

He added that there would be “some safeguards” added to the program to make sure that the funding is “not abused.” 

With even middle-class families struggling with childcare costs, he said he sees many families qualifying for the new initiative. 

Maxwell said that the cost for local families to enroll their kids into local childcare centers can cost close to $24,000 annually, depending on how old the child is, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. He said the current sticker price is “untenable” for most families in the city. 

“And that data does not take into account multiple children or children who have higher needs, and require extra care,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell said that he also hopes the program will address a scarcity issue with local childcare service providers. He said that if all families that qualified applied for local childcare services, only 34% of those children could be taken in based on the current available resources. 

The announcement comes months after President Donald Trump’s administration announced a freeze of $10 billion in federal childcare funding for five Democrat-led states, including California. The federal administration froze the funding following unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the five states’ local welfare systems. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is in the process of suing the government to get the money back.

But even before the federal funding freeze, the high cost of childcare has been an issue in cities and counties across the nation and especially in California, where the cost of living is higher than in most other parts of the country. 

Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a program to provide free diapers to families at select hospitals across the state.

First 5 of California have also seen a reduction in services in recent years. The state program, which started in 1998, gets its funding through taxes on the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products. But a decline in smokers in the state has led to a loss of funding for the group.

“The good news is we get less people smoking cigarettes today than ever in the State of California,” Maxwell said. “The bad news is less funding for child programs, not just in the State of California, but especially here in economically impacted communities.”

Many of those issues have also been exacerbated by a lack of resources available to parents.

The United States Chamber of Commerce found that there has been a reduction in childcare workers nationally by 30% since 2019, “largely due to the pandemic.” The Chamber also identified high costs of childcare leading to, in part, a larger nationwide workers shortage, brought on by parents choosing to leave the workforce due to an inability to afford childcare services. 

Fresno County is also grappling with its own funding issues, as it’s currently starting down the barrel of a $300 million deficit, also largely brought on by a loss of federal dollars. Their cuts are expected to mostly affect the local SNAP and Medi-Cal program. 

Maxwell said these issues have compounded and become big enough to have prospective parents ask whether they can even afford to start a family. 

The new program is still pending the approval of a budget allocation from the city council during their budget hearings, a process that started on Monday. If funding is approved, Maxwell said the city would work with First 5 to create a service agreement that would then have to be approved by the city council. The process, Maxwell said, could take “a couple of months.”

In the short term, Maxwell said councilmembers’ discretionary budgets, Measure P dollars, private money, and “grants specifically targeted toward homeless individuals” were among the possible funding sources for the program.

The second part of Maxwell’s plan involves him looking to get the city council to approve the formation of the Commission on Family Affordability And Childcare Access — a new one-year-long, nine-person committee that would look for, among other things, a long-term stable funding stream for the city’s new program.

“This will not be an easy task, nor will it be a quick one, but it will be an effective one,” Maxwell said of both the commission’s and the new program’s jobs and responsibilities.

Maxwell said that as part of the new commission, he will ask the body to report twice to the city council — at the six month and one year marks — to allow for input from the city council and mayor. 

When asked if a new tax would be on the table as a possible new, long-term stable funding stream, Maxwell did not immediately shut down the possibility. But he added that at this time, he would “not want to speculate,” especially since other jurisdictions have identified ways to fund similar programs with the introduction of a new tax.

“I think the rule of thumb is do no harm or do as little harm as possible…but we will be looking at all possible options,” Maxwell said.

At the special meeting for the formation of the commission on Monday afternoon, Maxwell said he’s looking for $3.5 million for the one-year pilot program. It was not immediately approved on Monday, but will surely resurface throughout the budget hearings this week. 

Maxwell also shared that he talked to Mayor Dyer about some of the programs that other jurisdictions like Albuquerque, New Mexico are doing as a source of inspiration. 

The City of Albuquerque recently announced a way to streamline the opening of new childcare facilities to address their own scarcity issues. Those scarcity issues were further highlighted after New Mexico became the first state in the country to guarantee no-cost universal childcare. They did it without raising taxes. 

The program is also facing litigation.

Monday’s special meeting also saw Council President Nelson Esparza and councilmember Annalisa Perea appointed as commissioners to the new committee.

“A city that wants to grow needs to make it easier for our families to stay,” said Perea, who added that her family spends about $2,000 a month on childcare services. 

“That is a sizable mortgage, rent for most Fresno families,” she added. 

Perea also said she would not be supportive of a new tax.

Councilmember Arias shared that he has some concerns with the local First 5 county commission getting the money since the local First 5 has a board of commissioners appointed by the county’s board of supervisors. He also questioned the viability of Measure P funding being available for the program. 

Monday’s announcement follows what Maxwell said was a series of policies he’s introduced to serve working class Fresnans. The councilmember has also introduced the Zero Fare Clean Air Act, Eviction Protection Program, and Wage Theft Program to the city during his tenure as councilmember.

“This is all just a joint effort to tackle some of the same issues from different fronts,” Maxwell said, “to make sure that our working families have the resources they need, and to ensure that Fresno continues to be the best place in California to raise a family.”

Correction: An earlier draft of this story incorrectly identified the Youth Leadership Institute as a partner in the policy draft. The story has been corrected