Rowan plays with toys at Gull Harbor Lutheran Preschool, where Erin Mann teaches. (Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)

The $1.4 billion budget approved by senators on Monday is 3% less than current levels and could lead to job losses and preschool closures, advocates say

State-funded preschool programs would lose millions under an early childhood education budget given a “reluctant yes” vote by the Oregon Senate.

Senate Bill 5514, the 2025-27 budget for the state’s two-year-old Department of Early Learning and Care, passed the Senate on Monday on a 22-6 vote, with five Republicans joining all Democrats in voting for it. It now moves to the House where a vote has not yet been scheduled.

The $1.4 billion budget is $45 million — or 3% — less than what legislative budget analysts say is needed to continue existing programming; $72 million less than what advocates say is needed to meet a budget shortfall due to rising costs and inflation; and 0.5% less than what legislators budgeted for the agency during the last biennium.

“Zero to 5-year-olds don’t have a strong union or a wealthy lobby, and their parents are tired,” state Sen. Lisa Reynolds, D-Portland, said to her colleagues on the Senate Floor. “I will be a reluctant ‘yes’ today on this budget, because something is better than nothing.”

Reynolds was one of several lawmakers from both parties who bemoaned cutting funding to an agency that the state made independent in 2023 in part because they wanted it to grow and serve more kids.

“Investing early is the fiscally prudent thing to do. It saves state money down the road, and yet, here we are,” Reynolds said.

Sen. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, told his colleagues the budget cuts were due in large part to state economic forecasters predicting a 6% decrease in revenue from the corporate activity tax over the next two years. That tax seeds the Student Success Act fund, which sends $200 million each year to the early learning department.

The Legislature on Monday passed a record $11.36 billion budget for K-12 education, an 11% increase from the previous biennium.

Cuts across the board

Senate Bill 5514 includes a 2% cut to all programs offered by the early learning department and 10% cuts to four specific programs: Preschool Promise, Healthy Families Oregon, Early Childhood Equity Fund and Parenting Education.

Preschool Promise, which provides free preschool for kids ages 3 and 4 from two-member households where earnings are $40,880 or less and four-member households where earnings are $62,400 or less, would see the biggest cut: $20.2 million. This could take away preschool in 2025 for up to 640 children, according to a letter sent to legislators Friday by a coalition of two dozen advocates, including the nonprofit Portland-based advocacy group Children’s Institute.

“Hopefully we don’t have to tell 3-year olds there’s no preschool for you when you turn 4,” Dana Hepper, policy director for Children’s Institute, told the Capital Chronicle.

Healthy Families Oregon would see a $4.4 million cut. The program provides support and home visits to parents and families that have or are expecting a newborn.

The Early Childhood Equity Fund that provides grants to nonprofits and schools that offer culturally-specific early learning programming in a student’s native language or for parents learning a new language with their child, would see nearly $3 million in cuts. Department-sponsored parenting education programs would also see a $400,000 cut.

Downstream effects

Advocates are asking lawmakers in the House to vote against the budget passed by the Senate or to scale back budget cuts by $10 million to $20 million, not $45 million.

They said the downstream effects of the bill will hit a workforce already struggling with low wages, and fewer kids will have access to preschool despite overwhelming evidence that shows it is among the most effective ways to boost equity and student outcomes later in students’ academic careers.

Advocates in their letter to lawmakers also said the state should be stepping up following federal officials freezing Head Start dollars earlier this year, which was chaotic and strained state providers of the early learning program for kids. The current Head Start budget proposed by President Donald Trump and under consideration in Congress keeps funding for the program flat, advocates said, which will put even more pressure on state programs that are seeing costs and demand rise.

“We are asking those who work with babies and preschoolers in our state to do the same work with less,” they wrote in their letter.

If Senate Bill 5514 passes the House, Hepper said, they’ll hope to see final fixes that could lessen the impact on early childhood providers in the “Christmas tree bill” legislators pass at the end of session to deal with last-minute budget needs.