““I love my job,” is one of the first things Ashley Ross says, as she sits down to talk about a looming pay cut that she might be facing. She’s worked at Gan HaYeled, an early childhood program in Northwest D.C., for almost 20 years, and was recently promoted to split her time between two roles: a pre-K classroom teacher and a teacher resource coordinator, who works with other educators to solve problems that arise in the classroom or at home. Throughout her career, Ross said she has seen a number of incremental pay bumps, including an increase after she earned an associate degree in 2021. That year, her salary was about $47,000. But the most significant change in her income came in 2022, she said, when Washington began implementing the D.C. Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund in an effort to boost wages in the child care sector. The initiative provided funds to make early educators’ salaries equivalent to K-12 public school educators. Ross received an additional $14,000 that year and her pay has continued to increase. Today, she makes around $67,000. The additional income has allowed her to buy a home and enroll her children in after school activities like boxing and gymnastics. The Pay Equity Fund — the first program of its kind in the United States — has been lauded as a model for improving early educator retention, creating stability for a traditionally underpaid workforce largely made up of women, many of them women of color , in an industry with one of the highest turnover rates in the country. But despite its popularity with educators and advocates, the fund has faced instability over the years and now it’s on the chopping block. Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed a budget on Friday, April 10 that included a $60 million cut to the Pay Equity Fund, which would eliminate the wage supplements that provided the city’s early childhood teachers with higher salaries. Mayor Muriel Bowser presents her budget analysis to councilmembers during her last budget forum on April 10. (Getty Images) Bowser explained that what she hears most from families is that they want more opportunities for child care and they want it to be less expensive. But the Pay Equity Fund is “not a child care affordability fund, it’s more of an income support fund for child care workers,” she said. “It does not respond to what people are saying.” Ross is one of more than 3,000 early educators in D.C., who would be drastically impacted by this change. Without the extra dollars she receives through the program, her salary would drop precariously, to the point that making the commute to work in D.C. wouldn’t make much economic or logistical sense. She lives over an hour away by car, and with her experience, education and credentials, she could likely find a job in the public school system where she lives in neighboring Prince George’s County, Maryland. A job like that would bring benefits and a stable salary, she said. Ashley Ross, pre-K teacher and teacher resource coordinator at Gan YaHeled in Northwest D.C. (Rebecca Gale) “Yes, everyone loves the Gan,” she said, referring to the early childhood center where she works. “It’s a special place. But everyone has to live in the real world. They have to pick between the love for their job or their income. Without pay equity, it doesn’t make any sense,” Ross said. Her partner has encouraged her to think about the long term, but she said she’s having a hard time asking herself,“If they cut the money for me, what is the plan?” The Struggle for Consistent Funding Created through the District’s budget and administered by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education , the Pay Equity Fund initially delivered direct payments to eligible educators. During its first year, early childhood teachers received a one-time payment of up to $14,000 , depending on their role and employment status. In 2023, the fund offered teachers up to four quarterly payments of up to $3,500 each. Then in 2024 , the model shifted: instead of educators applying individually and receiving direct payments, licensed child care programs that met the requirements could opt in and receive funding through a payroll formula. The voluntary program was designed to help providers recruit and retain staff by offering more competitive wages, and its reach has been substantial. More than $80 million was distributed to over 4,000 home- and center-based child care providers during the initiative’s first two years, and more than $67 million went to 365 child care facilities in 2024. This isn’t the first time the program has faced instability. In April 2024, Bowser suggested eliminating the program in her budget proposal for fiscal year 2025. A fter a public outcry , the D.C. Council restored $70 million to the fund , but advocates warned that with the increase in participation, more money was needed. That same year, a task force was convened to make budget recommendations for the program, which led to the Early Childhood Educator Pay Scales Amendment Act of 2025, a measure that lowered salary minimums for early educators. Some centers in the city, including the Gan, absorbed the cuts so that the teachers’ paychecks would be unchanged, said Noah Hichenberg, director of Gan HaYeled. To be fully funded in fiscal year 2027, the Pay Equity Fund would need $92.4 million , said Anne Gunderson, a senior policy analyst at D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. The program has grown more expensive because of its success, she noted. While the program had lower participation in its first few years, it has since grown in popularity. Research from Mathematica shows that after the first two years of implementation, there was an increase of 219 early educators in D.C., about 7% higher than the estimated levels in the absence of the program. Gunderson said more teachers have enrolled in the program, stayed in their positions and gone back to school to pursue an associate or bachelor degree, with the goal of being able to earn a higher income upon graduation. “The fact that we’re able to increase utilization is a good thing,” said Gunderson. “Normally this would be something that would be celebrated.” Instead, it has resulted in a more expensive program, limiting the number of educators who are able to take part. LaVonda Butler-Means, an assistant teacher at Gan YaHeled, is one of the teachers who was motivated to pursue a higher level of education. The first year of Pay Equity her salary jumped from $43,000 to over $50,000. Encouraged, she enrolled in an accelerated program to get an associate degree, for which she estimated cost her around $26,000 out of pocket. Her goal was to become a lead teacher at the Gan after graduating in May, a move that would bring her a $10,000 raise. If the fund is eliminated and the increase doesn’t come through, she said she will have to look for another job. “There is no way I can go back to make what I was making and sustain life,” Butler-Means said. LaVonda Butler-Means, assistant teacher at Gan YaHeled (Rebecca Gale) One of the challenges of building a sustainable funding pathway for the Pay Equity Fund, explained Jamal Berry, president of Educare DC, an early learning program, is that it takes time to see the impact. Evidence shows that access to high-quality child care is a worthwhile investment, but the success of programs are often realized across a child’s education, which do not always translate into an immediate win. But leaders at programs participating in the Pay Equity Fund do report benefits, including lower staff turnover. Hichenberg credits the Pay Equity Fund with elevating the quality of care and stabilizing the workforce at his program. Of the 27 educators who work at the Gan, 23 have been there for more than three years since the Pay Equity Fund began. He anticipates it will be much harder to hire people at a lower salary level if the program gets cut. “Its’ not just a burden or headache, it’s a more volatile experience for our youngest learners,” he said. Staff turnover at Educare DC has also fallen since the Pay Equity Fund was implemented, and more staff are receiving additional education credentials, said Ronnell Nathaniel, the program’s vice president. Like at the Gan, her staff has benefited from the pay increase. Some teachers have shared that they’re purchasing their first home, she said, though the fact that the funding is in jeopardy has worked to undercut the staff’s sense of security and stability. “The inconsistency is every year,” she said. “You have to be concerned about that.” Gunderson anticipates that the impact of gutting the Pay Equity Fund would be felt most keenly in programs serving infants and toddlers, which are the most expensive to maintain because of high staffing ratios. “They’re the first to go,” she said. Without a dedicated funding stream for the Pay Equity Fund, each budget cycle poses tough choices about which programs to fund and which to cut. “We’ve scored a touchdown and now we’re fumbling the ball,” said Berry. “States like New Mexico and New York are moving in this direction,” he gestured forward with his hands, “and we are moving backwards.” Advocates Prepare to Push Back Advocates are gearing up for a fight to save the program. Ahead of the budget release, educators and supporters turned out in protest at the John A. Wilson building in downtown D.C., where the local government is headquartered, as part of a rally to save D.C. child care . The national Day Without Child Care is slated for May 11, and advocates are encouraging child care providers to close or operate on a reduced schedule to show the impact of their services. But as compared to 2024, when the program first came under fire, it’s been harder to galvanize support for saving the program. LaDon Love works at Spaces in Action, a grassroots advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. that played a significant role in the 2024 effort to save the Pay Equity Fund and is involved again this year. Love said that when she goes and speaks to early childhood educators, they think the major fight is behind them. “We won, right?” she said. Many do not realize their salaries are on the line again. When asked if the parents feel some outrage at the cuts and how it could impact the teachers who look after their children, Butler-Means shrugs. “Some take it really seriously,” she said. “Others it doesn’t matter to them as long as their kids have somewhere to go.” Related Why This Vermont Child Care Organization Was Designed to Sunset After a Decade There are a few options that advocates and policymakers are exploring to keep the fund intact. One route involves creating a dedicated funding stream for it, similar to what Vermont has done in shoring up their own early childhood infrastructure. Another solution is to develop a new Business Activity Tax for Washington, D.C., which would increase revenue by adding a broad-based value-added tax to businesses. Experts believe this tax could raise as much as $500 million, and could be routed to social services programs that are on the chopping block, like the Pay Equity Fund. But, a tax like this would likely require a phase-in or implementation lag of a year, meaning that programs that could be funded by it would face a shortfall in the interim. An indefinite pay cut may loom too large for Ross and Butler-Means, pushing them out of their current roles, even with the possibility of a more stable funding source in the future. But there is something positive to have come from all of this, said Hichenberg, the Gan’s director. “The Pay Equity Fund has given all of us a gift of what is possible when pay is raised, and that has been beautiful to see,” he said. “It’s a stabilized workforce, more content teachers, more robust work-life balance and vacations,” he added. “It has allowed our core group of educators to stay stable for a number of years and allowed us to move forward as a school, improving quality in the classroom and smoother transitions for the parents. These have always been our goals. But the Pay Equity Fund has been the element of stability that has allowed for it.”
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