BY: MORGAN CHILSON
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Surrounded by the shouts and chatter of children playing, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Thursday signed legislation consolidating the state’s early childhood services under one department and supporting creation of more child care openings.
“When I ran for governor in 2018, I often said that, should I leave a legacy, I wanted to leave behind the most comprehensive early childhood system in the nation, so that our children, their families, our businesses and our communities could thrive,” Kelly told a crowd gathered at the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center in Topeka.
Kelly signed House Bill 2045, which creates the Office of Early Childhood, effectively consolidating more than 20 Kansas programs having to do with children, child care and other issues under one banner. In addition, the bill is expected to increase availability of much-needed child care slots, although critics have voiced concerns that it softened licensure requirements.
The bill allows fewer education requirements for some workers in a child care facility and changes ratios of the number of adults to children. It also matches vaccination requirements to those currently in place for children attending school.
Rep. Kirk Haskins, a Topeka Democrat, said he worked on the bill for three years and that the final product, while not without its costs, was effective and good.
“We do have a day care gap that we have to address,” he said. “But we have to be careful to make sure we’re not changing so much that it harms our children.”
Kelly said some concerns raised about the bill were misguided because people didn’t understand that much of the language included in HB 2045 was already in statute elsewhere.
“Some of the concerns, like the wording on certain provisions within that, those are things that were already in statute,” she said. “They were just sort of put into the child care conversation, but were already existing. But I felt very comfortable that what we ended up with addressed a lot of concerns.”
Kelly said objections to the vaccination language in HB 2045 was one of those misunderstood issues.
“That language already exists in state law, and we just put it into child care regulations,” she said.
Sen. Tory Marie Blew, a Great Bend Republican, spoke to the crowd while holding her 11-month-old daughter, Brynn. She said she and her husband put their names on a child care wait list in 2020, and then it took them longer than expected to have a child. A spot didn’t come open until just after their daughter was born in May 2024, she said.
“Many folks are not working because either they can’t afford it or they don’t have access to it,” Blew said. “The thing about child care is it’s an issue across every state. Hopefully more states will look to Kansas on what we’re doing here.”
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, equated the legislation to a promise to Kansas families.
“By establishing the Kansas Office of Early Childhood, this bill takes a transformative step toward making child care in Kansas more accessible, more affordable and more effective,” she said.
“Kansas will now have a centralized, accountable agency with an executive director focused entirely on those early childhood services,” Sykes added. “This means more coordination, less confusion and better results.”
Kelly said it had been clear for some time that the current system in Kansas wasn’t meeting the needs of providers, communities and businesses. This legislation ensures a stronger, more comprehensive and flexible system for providers, she said.
“We know the earliest years of childhood are crucial in determining the trajectory of one’s entire life, including economic health and social outcomes,” Kelly said. “A robust, flourishing early childhood system not only benefits our children, but it’s also critical to our state’s economic growth and well-being.”