Good afternoon, Chairman Mendelson, members of the Committee of the Whole, and staff. Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback to the Committee today on Bill 26-176, the Early Childhood Educator Pay Scales Amendment Act of 2025. My name is Joanna Blotner, and I serve as the Director of Government Affairs at DC Action, one of the conveners of the Under 3 DC Coalition.
DC Action is grateful to you, Chairman Mendelson, for introducing this legislation to permanently codify important fixes and clarifications to the law governing the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund and we hope the bill can be adopted into the FY26 Budget Support Act to overwrite the Mayor’s proposed subtitle that attempts to undermine and defund the Pay Equity Fund in out-years of the District’s financial plan. As you will hear time and time again today, the Pay Equity Fund has been instrumental in elevating the quality, supply, and stability of the District’s early education workforce and ecosystem. My brother was an ECE assistant teacher for 5 years in DC and when his first supplemental paycheck arrived from the Pay Equity Fund, it was the first time he was able to fully pay off his credit card debt and the pay motivated him to finally pursue his Child Development Associate’s degree; he is now exploring options to complete his BA so he can return to DC’s early learning classrooms soon. The Under 3 DC Coalition has heard countless stories like his that demonstrate the profound personal and policy impacts of this program.
Today, we ask you to make the following improvements to B26-176 to ensure the Pay Equity Fund can continue delivering on its many profound impacts for educators, children, families, and businesses across the District – and my written testimony goes into more detail on each of these recommendations and also includes recommendations on legislative content to protect as legislation moves forward:
- Reject the portion of the Mayor’s Budget Support Act subtitle defunding the Pay Equity Fund and modify your introduced legislation by adding a paragraph after line 107 that sets the FY26 and beyond (“and annually thereafter”) statutory funding level to read “an amount determined by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer that is sufficient to meet salary table requirements for all eligible child development facilities and educators projected to be enrolled in the Pay Equity Fund program, including funding necessary to operate the HealthCare4ChildCare program” – or similar language that reflects the real costs of fully operating the Pay Equity Fund. We must orient this legislation toward funding sufficiency and long-term success, not arbitrary cost containment, which the law’s current language has the effect of doing.
- Update the mission of Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force – pages 11-12 of B26-176 introduced version – to direct the Task Force to guide the future, long-term success of the Pay Equity Fund, as the currently legislated scope is now multiple years out of date. The Task Force should be required to provide ongoing, strategic guidance that advances equity, stability, funding sufficiency, full pay parity with DCPS PreK and Kindergarten teachers, transparency and innovation in implementation of the Pay Equity Fund. This work may need to occur triennially, rather than every 4 years. Additionally, the Council should require the Task Force to be convened and consulted prior to any spending pressure-necessitated adjustments to the PEF early educator salary minimum tables.
- Revise lines 87-92 to make clear that reducing educator salary minimums should be an option of last resort. Further, any future cost-containment related revision to salary tables or PEF funding formula must be pursued in partnership with the early education community. This means convening the Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force proactively. The rulemaking process, as drafted, solicits retroactive – often performative – input only after policy decisions have been made behind closed-doors; the Task Force process is grounded in transparency and collaboration, using open meetings to solicit and leverage the expertise of directly impacted educators, early learning program administrators, and subject matter experts.
- Revise lines 82-84 to include broader amendments to subsection (c) of Section 11b of the current law (§ 4–410.02(c)) which directs OSSE to recommend annual updates to the early educator pay scale tables. OSSE should be required to annually consider and propose upward adjustments to the tables to reflect inflation and cost of living. The Mayor should also be required (in §4–410.02(c)(3)) to submit an annual budget that reflects those revisions as they will be necessary for the Pay Equity Fund to keep pace with the goal of educator pay parity across early education and PK-12 education.
- Add language requiring OSSE to provide the Council and the public with regular data on the Pay Equity Fund’s implementation progress, programmatic trends, and spending pressures. At a minimum, data should be required to be shared as part of the agency’s annual oversight responses to the Council but could also complement the legislation’s requirement of the OCFO to provide quarterly reports (lines 94-97).
- Ensure OSSE’s administrative cost allowances and funding allocations align with current spending and expenditure categories (lines 123-124).
- Clarify that the categorical or demographic composition of the Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force is what the legislation intends to preserve, not the exact individuals appointed to service in 2021 (lines 218-221). And clarify that at least some educator and program director members of the Task Force should be current participants in the Pay Equity Fund (page 10).
Finally, while we are aware that there are limited tools at the Council’s disposal to protect stable and sufficient out-years funding for the Pay Equity Fund, it is not acceptable to just give up, give into gimmicks, or hope we’ll deal with it next year. Next year is not a guarantee and the 4,000 early educators and more than 25,000 children they are creating strong educational foundations for and who deserve better than that. The Council promised early educators that they would finally be paid and treated like the education professionals they are, and the Council promised high earners in the District that their increased taxes would be put toward strengthening and improving our early childhood education system. Both promises must be kept. We implore the Council to get creative in exploring all legislative, legal, and budgetary options to prevent future attacks on the Pay Equity Fund.
We must fully invest in our littlest learners by updating Pay Equity Fund legislation, orienting and funding the PEF for long term success, and guaranteeing affordable access to early care and education by budgeting accurately to sustain the child care subsidy program. Thank you and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Full List and Explanation of Policy Revision Recommendations:
- The law governing the Pay Equity Fund should be oriented toward long-term funding sufficiency and stability, rather than cost-containment. The Pay Equity Fund has quickly generated numerous positive returns on investment but it will require additional funding, transparency, and interagency coordination to keep growing our workforce, child care supply, and quality of early education experiences. An important way B26-176 can be structured to ensure the long term success of the Pay Equity Fund is by adding language requiring the Fiscal Year 2026 funding level, and annually thereafter, to be set at “funds sufficient to meet salary table requirements for all child development facilities and educators projected to be enrolled in the Pay Equity Fund program in the coming fiscal year, including funding necessary to operate the HealthCare4ChildCare program.”
The bill’s current language (line 107) has the potential impact of capping Pay Equity funding at $70 million annually when we know that amount is already insufficient. Additionally, labor costs have naturally occurring spending increases each year (e.g. cost of living adjustments, workforce growth, promotions, compensation for earning higher credentials. etc.). A stagnant funding level will have the effect of undermining the Fund original goal of achieving parity with DCPS salaries due to frozen pay, constrained program participation, elimination of HealthCare4ChildCare, and ultimately cutting salaries, forcing hardworking early educators out of the workforce. It will be imperative for OSSE, the Chief Financial Officer, the Health Benefit Exchange, the Mayor’s Office of Budget and Performance Management, the Council, and the early education community to work closely together to ensure there is accurate and transparent tracking of program costs and that the District is able to budget annually for the full funding necessary for the Pay Equity Fund to thrive. It will also be important for these agencies to work closely with any convening of the Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force – whether a regular convening or ad hoc convening of the Task Force – to ensure the Task Force is able to provide thorough strategic guidance that advances equity, full DCPS parity, stability, funding sufficiency, and innovation in implementation of the Pay Equity Fund. Revised content of B26-176 should include language that sets up future Task Forces for these long-term goals.
- Protect Bill 26-176’s codification of fair pay for lead teachers with a Bachelor’s of Arts degree, restoring the salary minimum to $75,103 after the Budget Support Act last year (Fiscal Year 2025) was forced to reduce salaries for some of our most highly-qualified and credentialed teachers.
(beginning line 76) - Should the Pay Equity Fund face funding challenges, reductions to educator salary minimums should be the last option pursued by OSSE to alleviate spending pressures. The law currently allows OSSE to adjust the payroll formula or reduce the number of child development facilities eligible to receive PEF payments (prioritizing subsidy-accepting facilities to remain in the program). The Pay Scales Amendment Act would newly allow OSSE to revise the early educator salary tables set by law. While this may become a necessary option for the agency, it should be an option of last resort. To safeguard the longevity of fair pay for early educators who have worked so hard to obtain newly required credentials, the language in the Pay Scales Amendment Act should direct OSSE to only pursue salary table adjustments if no other solutions are available, and only after reconvening and consulting the Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force to ensure funding strategies are guided by equity and those in community with early education professionals.
- Require the Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force to reconvene prior to OSSE pursuing any spending pressure-induced revisions, and especially before pursuing changes to lead and assistant teacher minimum pay scales. Reducing pay levels for early educators should be avoided as much as possible but if it becomes necessary, the early education community must have a seat at the table in decision making. The rulemaking process solicits retroactive input in decisions made behind closed-doors, the Task Force process leverages open meetings to solicit the proactive input of directly impacted educators, early learning program administrators, and subject matter experts.
- Require the annual updates to the minimum salary tables to include cost of living adjustments. The Pay Equity Fund law already requires the Mayor to recommend annual updates to the early educator pay scales – once in February, and again with her annual budget submission. These annual updates were put in law to help ensure the Pay Equity Fund could maintain parity with DCPS educator salaries and by making explicit in a revised version of this bill that the Mayor should endeavor to factor in regular cost of living adjustments to updated salary tables we can fulfil that promise to early educators that their work is just as valued as any other education professional.
- Require OSSE to provide the Council and the public with regular data on the Pay Equity Fund’s implementation progress, programmatic trends, and spending pressures. Better data and more transparency will help OSSE, the Council, and the public better understand how pay equity funding is being used, how it is making a difference in the District’s early learning ecosystem, emerging challenges or concerns, and if the District is achieving its desired goals around child care equity, quality, and supply. Bill 26-176 could require the Mayor and Office of the Chief Financial Officer to share data quarterly, biannually, or as part of the agency’s annual oversight responses.
- Expand on the requirement for the Chief Financial Officer to submit to Council a quarterly expenditure report on the Pay Equity Fund. This provision brings vital transparency to the Fund and can help the District proactively avoid spending pressures that could necessitate harmful changes. Both OSSE and the CFO should be producing regular reports (quarterly, annually, etc) on the Fund, including HealthCare4ChildCare expenditures and cost pressures, and data and reports compiled should be made publicly available.
(beginning line 94)
- Protect and strengthen the requirement for OSSE to issue guidance for child development facilities on compliance with Pay Equity Fund salary minimums. Technical assistance guidance from the agency will be greatly appreciated by early learning program administrators, especially by new administrators given the helpful role the Pay Equity Fund plays in creating the economic conditions necessary to grow the District’s supply of child care. This guidance will be most helpful to child development facilities if it is produced in plain language, complies with the District’s Language Access law, and proactively engages the early education community in drafting. Bill 26-176 could be strengthened by adding these requirements.
(beginning line 78) - Clarify selection and succession framework for the Early Childhood Educator Equitable Compensation Task Force. We are grateful this legislation recognizes that it is unrealistic for the same individuals to serve on the Task Force in perpetuity but that the structural composition of the Task Force should remain in place to ensure all facets of the early learning community are represented. Bill 26-176 should be clarified to ensure the “categorical,” “proportional,” or “structural” composition and demographic representation on the Task Force is preserved.
(beginning line 218) - Ensure OSSE’s administrative cost allowances and funding allocations align with current spending and expenditure categories. In statute, OSSE’s spending cap is set at 5% of the Pay Equity Fund’s total allocation yet we understand they have regularly spent less than 4%. When every dollar matters, let’s be sure we are saving money where we can to protect educator salaries.
(lines 123-124) - Adopt the streamlining laws regarding the Pay Equity Fund to be organized under Chapter 4 of Title 4 (governing “Day Care”) making pay equity provisions easier to find, follow, and read in one place. These technical revisions will help improve the accessibility and transparency of District law – thank you.
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