Childcare is notoriously expensive. The market value in our state is $10,764 a year. That’s nearly as much as a year of in-state tuition at ASU.
And aid for low-income families to pay for preschool is drying up. More than 13,000 kids are now on the Arizona Department of Economic Security's waitlist, the Arizona Capitol Times reports — a 575% jump since it was reinstated in 2024.
Becky Pallack has the story for Arizona Luminaria and she joined The Show to talk more.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Becky. Thank you for coming on The Show.
BECKY PALLACK: Thank you for having me.
LAUREN GILGER: So tell us first about this program. The acronym for it is PEEPS, right?
BECKY PALLACK: Right, Pima Early Education Program. We call it PEEPS, and it is a scholarship program that helps low-income families cover the cost of a high-quality preschool.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. And this program is now seeing a long waitlist of its own, more than 600 kids?
BECKY PALLACK: Yeah, the county said at the end of May there were already 630 preschool kids on waitlists for this program. And there could be more kids who need it. DES says there’s 2,300 kids in Pima County that are on their waitlists. So, yeah, there’s a lot of kids who need this program and the county’s not able to serve all of them.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. And so let’s talk about what’s behind that: funding cuts, etc. Like as I mentioned at the top, and you just mentioned there, the Department of Economic Security has this massive and growing waitlist for subsidies for early childhood education, and we’re seeing other early childhood programs taking hits, right? Quality First, First Things First, right? Outline some of that for us.
BECKY PALLACK: Right. First Things First is funded by basically cigarette taxes. And with fewer people smoking and more people vaping, that funding pool is just drying up, so there are fewer scholarships available. At the same time, the number of licensed childcare providers is shrinking. So we’ve got kind of this perfect storm of revenue streams drying up and like a childcare shortage in general all happening at the same time.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And this is a program, right, Becky, that was built on pandemic relief funds, right? And those are gone for the most part as well.
BECKY PALLACK: That’s right. So Pima County launched PEEPS as this really bold experiment in 2021 where they wanted to track this preschool cohort to show the benefits of early education. And it was built on one-time federal funds, which were those pandemic relief dollars.
And that money lasted four years, but now in years five and six, different money is needed. So they’re looking for different ways to keep this program going.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so let’s talk about what those could be, because local officials there have tried to fill the gap. They’ve used override money in the past. What else are they looking at?
BECKY PALLACK: Right. It would cost millions to place all of the kids who are on the waitlist. So they’re trying to decide what money they can come up with. And right now, officials in Pima County are considering other one-time moneys.
They just started talking about a possible tax through the library district. And right now, some library district funds are benefiting this preschool program.
And they’re also just talking about fundraising, like how can they raise charitable contributions from businesses and foundations to help preschool kids get into programs.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. You reported the city of Tucson dropped its funding for PEEPS, so did Oro Valley. It’s kind of left to the county here, it sounds like.
BECKY PALLACK: Right. The county is filling in gaps that otherwise would have been filled by our local cities and towns, and also by these state contributions. So they’re really trying to figure out how they can put pieces together to make it work.
And meanwhile, childcare costs are up almost 40% from before the pandemic, so families are paying more and getting on these waitlists.
LAUREN GILGER: The county also added a fee for some families who use this program, is that right?
BECKY PALLACK: That’s right. So some families are going to start paying on a sliding scale now. And these are low-income families, so some of the families will still be able to access these programs for free, but others will pay what they can. And that’s going to help open up a few more seats over time in the PEEPS program.
LAUREN GILGER: But it sounds like in the end, the future of this program, which has been pretty impactful there, is still pretty unclear.
BECKY PALLACK: Right. So it’s hard for families to find care that is quality and affordable right now. It’s often the biggest expense in the family budget right after housing and utilities.
And do you remember that game we used to play when we were kids, like musical chairs? It’s kind of now the situation where there are two preschool seats and three kids who need to get in those spots. So it’s kind of creating disparities in real time, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid here in Pima County by finding the funds to open up a number of scholarships for preschool kids.
LAUREN GILGER: All right, we’ll leave it there for now. Becky Pallack with Arizona Luminaria joining us. Becky, thank you very much for coming on The Show, appreciate it.
BECKY PALLACK: Thank you.
-
In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Kelly and the other senators say their constituents and other stakeholders report a lack of timely visa appointments for students and scholars ahead of the academic year. -
A retired University of Arizona professor will be hitting the road — again — to teach in another country. -
Carmen Lomas Garza’s artwork is a case study in how making art about ordinary life can be a radical act in itself. But you might recognize her paintings of everyday scenes of Latino life from her children’s books. -
When the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind closed its Tucson campus in June, music teacher Kate Scally Howell was worried — and not just because the closure put her out of a job. -
Republican lawmakers crafted an explanation of a measure to make major reforms in the voucher system in a way that is illegally designed to convince people to vote against it, a trial judge has ruled.
