Newly released reports from the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce are laying out the Commonwealth’s childcare needs from an economic and workforce development approach.
Chamber leaders said the 37 recommendations they’re laying out won’t fully solve Kentucky’s childcare needs but will create a foundation.
“Looking ahead to future sessions, there will undoubtedly be more, but what this group is recommending is what we think are the most concrete steps that the legislature can take right now as we head into the 2026 session,” Charles Aull, KY Chamber’s VP of policy, told lawmakers on the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children Wednesday.
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Childcare was an issue discussed at length in the 2024 session without any real solution agreed to.
“After the Horizons Act, I didn’t know where to go to at that point,” Sen. Danny Carroll (R-Paducah) said at the meeting. Carroll’s $300 million ‘Horizons Act’ was one proposed solution that never passed the General Assembly, but what that debate did do is start a conversation that’s carried into the 2025 interim.
“The 2024 session was really important for childcare because it allowed us to realize that we needed to bring everyone together and develop this consensus document,” Kate Shanks told FOX 56 News. Shanks is senior vice president of public affairs for the Kentucky Chamber.
Last fall the Kentucky Chamber brought in 40 stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds to chart a path forward on childcare. The 37 proposals they reached were all agreed to unanimously; some aimed at continuing existing funding programs and others meant to streamline regulatory hurdles.
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“One of the recommendations is a really good a good sense of the data. And to understand the supply gaps that we see in Kentucky so that we can track the progress being made. I think we can start to see some impacts pretty soon,” Shanks explained.
The Kentucky Chamber is considering not just pre-k, but childcare for all ages and dayparts a priority in the next session. Aull said their research shows the benefits of making the investment could pay off with a 16 to 28 thousand worker boost to the workforce.
Each of the newly published reports can be found at the Chamber of Commerce’s website.
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