Like the rest of the country, child care costs have been the greatest barrier for parents in New Mexico to obtain services. (1) However, in 2022; New Mexico made history by becoming the first state in the nation to make child care free for almost all families by expanding income eligibility for the child care assistance program, paving the way for thousands of children to access child care. In Doña Ana County alone, over 1,000 additional children have enrolled in child care since May 1, 2022 (2), when the state increased the income eligibility threshold and waived child care copays. Regardless, we still have room to improve access.

Our last newsletter estimated that only 20% of children under six were receiving the subsidy. Although increasing eligibility for assistance helps address the cost barrier that families face when getting child care, our survey in 2019 found that among parents who needed child care, approximately one out of every three parents reported they could not find a quality provider or that the waitlists were too long. (3) Parents also said that child care was unavailable at the times they needed it, they lacked reliable transportation to get there or did not know where to get the service. These issues only worsened when the pandemic caused many providers to close, never to reopen. (4) The large influx of children who qualify for child care services raises an important question: Would we have the capacity for every child to be in high-quality child care?

In New Mexico, formal child care falls into two overarching types: licensed and registered. Licensed child care providers offer services in a family home, group home, or a child care center and must follow New Mexico's child care licensing regulations. Licensed providers receive a FOCUS star-level quality rating. Registered home care providers are often found in rural areas and can care for up to four non-residential children. Although registered providers do not follow a quality rating system, child care specialists provide monitoring, training, and technical assistance to registered providers. (5) 

The county has approximately 579 child care centers and homes, down from 783 facilities in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. Data suggest the providers most impacted by pandemic-related restrictions and issues were the registered providers. Although the number of licensed centers and homes remained nearly the same from 2020 to 2023, registered homes dropped by 37%, likely because they are smaller businesses and had difficulty staying financially stable during the crisis. The reduction in facilities impacts not only the number of providers that are geographically accessible but also the number of slots available in homes.

In the past year, where did we lose the most slots?

Unfortunately, we see the trend that started during the pandemic continuing. Since July of 2022, 96 child care facilities closed, resulting in 45 fewer facilities overall and 514 fewer slots. The majority of slots were lost within the geographic boundaries of the Las Cruces Public School zone and were in licensed centers (-264 slots) and homes (-102 slots). Licensed family homes increased by 24 slots.

 Where in the county do we see a possible shortage of spaces available based on child care subsidy use?

It is difficult to know exactly where there are shortages in child care relative to the geographic location of families since parents can choose to enroll their child anywhere. In addition, no data source measures child care enrollment in real-time, nor is there readily available data on the number of slots filled by self-paying families. Regardless, we can look at child care subsidy use patterns across the county as a possible indication of where families used the greatest number of subsidies in proportion to the number of slots available for children. Although this is an estimate since subsidized child care counts include both part-time and full-time children, we estimate that based on the number of subsidized placements countywide in June 2023, subsidy children used 97% of slots in licensed group homes, 66% of slots in licensed homes, and 47% of slots in licensed centers (7). Subsidy children occupied 17% of slots in registered homes. In addition, over half of the slots potentially available within GISD boundaries were used by subsidy children, 39% in LCPS, and 20% in Hatch Valley. This data suggests that there is likely a need for more slots in licensed  homes, group homes, and centers.

The Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) has put $100 million into child care in New Mexico for numerous initiatives like providing better compensation for early child care workers and increasing child care center building in rural areas. The state is also working with some school districts to license their school buildings to house early child care centers and talking to businesses on how to build child care into their business planning processes. (8) 

On a local level, Las Cruces City Council adopted a Resolution amending the City’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding priorities and allocations. The Council recently approved five new projects, including a child care provider program in collaboration with Ngage New Mexico. Funding for this project will support a two-year accelerator program for registered home providers. Through this program, registered home providers will gain valuable support and training to increase their credentials and revenue as they transition to licensed home providers, increasing capacity in this high-demand sector. 

Stay tuned; our next newsletter will explore the child care worker landscape. To get involved in our local efforts to build child care capacity in Doña Ana County, you can join the Doña Ana County ECE Coalition at: https://www.successdac.org/ece/.