By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
Childcare advocates are warning that D.C.’s early learning system could face a major setback after the D.C. Council recently voted to reduce the salary minimums that child care facilities must meet to qualify for the city’s Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund.
The change, made through the Early Childhood Educator Pay Scales Temporary Amendment Act of 2025, reduces the required pay rates for assistant and lead teachers beginning in January 2026. Lawmakers described the move as an emergency measure to preserve the number of educators supported by the fund after Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to allocate additional dollars in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget and proposed eliminating it in Fiscal Year 2027 amid ongoing fiscal challenges.
While the bill does not directly cut wages, early learning advocates say it will reduce take-home pay for teachers.
“The D.C. Council took an important step today to minimize the worst impact of the mayor’s decision to underfund the Pay Equity Fund, but their work is incomplete,” said Ruqiyyah Anbar-Shaheen, director of early childhood for D.C. Action, in an Oct. 21 statement. “We have consistently raised concerns about underfunding the Pay Equity Fund; however, lawmakers have attempted to balance the budget on the backs of educators by cutting their pay even as the cost of living increases.”
With most parents of children under six in the workforce, demand for reliable childcare remains high. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2024, 62.6 percent of married-couple families with children under six had both parents employed, along with 68.1 percent of mothers and 85.3 percent of fathers in single-parent households.
Yet, early childhood educators remain among the nation’s lowest-paid workers, earning less than 97 percent of all other occupations, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. The Pay Equity Fund, created by the D.C. Council in 2021, aims to bring their salaries closer to those of K-12 public school teachers.
Under the council’s emergency legislation, reductions will be staggered— those earning the highest salaries will see the largest percentage cuts and those earning the least will see the smallest.
Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George condemned the cuts as a moral failure by city leadership.
“Early educators get no signing bonuses. They get no overtime. They get no hazard pay. They are not the problem. The problem is an unfortunate and unnecessary pattern of executive decision-making that keeps rewarding the loudest voices while short-changing the people who hold this city together,” said Lewis George during a Committee of the Whole hearing on Oct. 21. “This is not just about fiscal responsibility— it’s about moral responsibility. We as a city need to decide who we value and whether our budget reflects that plain and simple.”
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson also noted that the city’s chief financial officer blocked the council from using $243 million in additional revenue identified in June and September. The only way to appropriate the extra funds, he explained, is through a supplemental budget, which must be proposed by the mayor.
“There is a consequence if we do not approve this bill that’s before us, and the consequence is that [the Office of the State of Superintendent of Education] will have to use various policy levers that it has available to close the gap, which is roughly $9 million,” said Mendelson. “Those options are such things as to simply remove facilities from the program or to cut payments that are made to the facilities. If the payments to the facilities are cut, then the facilities are going to have to take some other steps so that they are able to operate.”
“Ultimately, there is no ideal solution for a program designed to grow when there are limited resources available,” Mendelson continued.
The D.C. Council plans to revisit the bill in the Spring when the Fiscal Year 2027 budget is released.
