Children’s Council Celebrates Big Budget Wins for ECE 

During the month of June, 700+ parents, child care educators, providers and advocates turned out at City Hall to urge San Francisco city officials to keep Baby Prop C funding intact during a difficult budget year. The child care community asked City officials to hear their voices and to learn how a loss of funding would deeply impact critical child care expansion, our city’s businesses, and San Francisco children, and they listened!

Many city leaders worked hand-in-hand with San Francisco’s early care and education (ECE) community to understand their concerns and to ensure that a proposal changing the tax structure for subleases in the city, which would have redirected $120 million in child care funding over the next seven years, did not proceed. 

Additionally, Supervisor Myrna Melgar, Budget Chair Connie Chan and Mayor London Breed worked together to fund $30 million in food security programming without reducing child care baseline funding. This was critically important, as reducing the baseline would have required amending voter-approved Baby Prop C, potentially moving toward a slippery slope of usurping the voice of the San Francisco electorate. 

We’re deeply appreciative of the time and effort of the mayor, the supervisors and their staffs to find a resolution to these issues, especially during such a challenging economic time for our city.  

These decisions show that the City and County of San Francisco is committed to the promises it has made to its parents, early educators, providers, infants and toddlers, and embraces working in collaboration with the ECE community to safeguard its youngest residents while upholding the funding sources that allow them to thrive. 

At Children’s Council, we look forward to continuing to support the SF ECE Advocacy Coalition and the amazing partners, organizations and community members that made these resolutions possible. Together, we  are making an enormous impact on our ability to advance ECE system expansion to meet the needs of families in San Francisco, including initiatives beyond the scope of Baby Prop C.  

Child care keeps San Francisco working! 

To learn more about our advocacy work and to get involved, visit our website.