Kelly proposes Office of Early Childhood to cut red tape for families and providers

Governor Laura Kelly urged the Kansas Legislature to create an Office of Early Childhood to consolidate early childhood programs spread across multiple agencies and to make services easier for families and providers to access.

"A system overloaded with bureaucracy might be manageable for some parents and for some providers, but it is a nightmare for most families who don't have the time or the resources to plow through the maze of unnecessary paperwork," Kelly said during her State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature on Jan. 15. "Let's put the functions of these agencies under one roof, the Office of Early Childhood. Let's offer a one-stop shop for young families, for child care providers, and for businesses to access early childhood services."

Kelly said early childhood services in Kansas are currently siloed in four different state agencies, requiring families to contact multiple places when seeking care and requiring providers to work with separate agencies for licensing, financial aid and start-up assistance. She cited Missouri, North Dakota and Arkansas as states that have already centralized such functions and said the proposal enjoys bipartisan support in Kansas. Kelly said more than 700 child care providers, business leaders and families have backed the one-stop concept and that it passed the Kansas House last session with 110 votes.

Kelly framed the consolidation as a workforce and economic issue, saying reducing administrative hurdles would help add child care capacity and support parents entering or remaining in the workforce. "We are on track to add more child care capacity in the next two years than we have in the last 15," she said.

If lawmakers pursue the proposal, Kelly did not identify which existing agency functions would be moved first or how the office would be staffed; those implementation details were not specified in her address.