Children in kindergarten. (Getty Images)
Child care advocates see Ohio’s 2026 elections, and especially the governor’s race, as a sign of how funding and priorities will shape for them as they try to cover a massive budget shortfall.
The fate of child care in Ohio is also influenced by federal decisions, including funding for Head Start programs and the Child Care and Development Block Grant.
Supporters say the recent government shutdown has already caused problems for the field as it struggles to keep up with demand and costs.
“The disruption to federally funded Head Start programs in Ohio in 2025 – proposed budget cuts and a destabilizing government shutdown – has been unprecedented,” said Julie Stone, executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association, Inc.
With Congress setting a Jan. 30 deadline to re-pass the federal spending bill, the potential for future struggles is growing.
“Ohio’s children, families, healthcare providers and communities count on strong federal investment and stable, year-round funding,” the children’s advocacy group Groundwork Ohio wrote in a fundraising email this month.
Groundwork president and CEO Lynanne Gutierrez said they remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached at the federal level. She further stated that thanks to powerful infrastructure at the state level, there is a lot of data that can support the work of the next governor, whoever he or she becomes.
Although the major party candidates have not yet been officially chosen, Gutierrez said her group has interviewed voters for both Dr. Amy Acton and Vivek Ramaswamy, the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates, respectively.
“We see opportunities with both candidates because this is really a bipartisan issue,” Gutierrez told the Capital Journal. “We want to be a partner regardless of who becomes the next governor.”
Gutierrez says state funding will be a substantial part of the 2026 strategy for child care advocates as they grapple with a $600 million budget shortfall that Gutierrez expects will occur in 2028 after the one-time federal funding expires.
“We believe this gap will mean 30,000 children will lose access to care each year,” Gutierrez said.
Head Start leaders share concerns about funding shortages, and Stone said the strength of Head Start services “will be critical to maximizing families’ access to care.”
When it comes to state funding, yes the latest state operating budget left eligibility for the publicly funded child care program at 145% of the federal poverty level, despite calls to raise it to 160% or even 200%.
A cost-sharing model called the Child Care Cred program, which divides child care costs between the state, employers and employees who apply for the program, received $10 million in funding. The budget provisions began as GOP-led legislation in both the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate, but policy analysts say other states that have tried the program have seen “poor” results.
The Child Care Choice Voucher program also received $50 million in state funding over the next two years. The money will come from federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block funds.
While the budget included grant programs to support recruitment and mentoring in the child care sector, the amount the state contributed to them increased from as much as $3.2 million in the House budget proposals to $2.85 million in the final budget.
Things will get harder as the new year begins, in part because the incremental funding changes that Ohio State advocates have tried to convince the Ohio Legislature to implement have gone to waste, leaving a immense gap, and many of them may prove too conspicuous to policymakers.
“I’m sure we’re not the only (sector) with a funding gap and there won’t be new federal money that will be able to cover that gap,” Gutierrez said.
Availability and affordability continue to be issues for both child care providers and families. According to the Ohio-based nonprofit’s 2025 Central Ohio Child Care Study Action for Children16% of providers in the area are unsure whether they will remain open in the next three months, an augment of 5% compared to 2024 data.
“Providers have even deeper concerns about long-term sustainability, as more than half (58%) of all providers are unsure whether they will be open in the next 12 months without additional public support,” the report said.
The study found that almost half of the providers who participated in the report say their monthly revenues do not cover their expenses. Suppliers also report fewer applicants – approximately 70% of people register at individual facilities.
“The shortage of facilities may create financial challenges for child care providers, who often operate on slim margins even when fully registered,” the report said. “Failure to fully enroll could put the program at risk of closure, thereby reducing the stability of the families it serves and exacerbating shortages of affordable, high-quality care.”
Child care costs have been a topic of debate in the Legislature for years, with bills ranging from cost-sharing models to family tax credits. But with state funding withering and federal funding being cut or depleted, families needing care may continue to struggle.
An Action for Children study found that child care is “out of reach” for many central Ohio households, and for those who can afford it, it is “often the largest single monthly expense.”
For example, in Franklin County, the lowest average child care cost is 14.6% of the median income in the county, where the median household income is $1,367 per week.
Gutierrez said cost reduction will obviously be a substantial part of Groundwork’s work in the Legislature next year.
“Affordability is the number one issue for families… (we are) examining both child care policies and potential child tax credit policies to help hard-working families,” she said.
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