Illinois 2025-2026 Regular Session

Illinois House Bill HR0137 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

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3	3	1 HOUSE RESOLUTION
4	4	2 WHEREAS, Decades of research demonstrate that high-quality
5	5	3 early care and education programs are effective in supporting
6	6	4 the learning and development of young children, increasing
7	7	5 their likelihood of success in school and in later life; and
8	8	6 WHEREAS, Studies similarly reflect the substantial
9	9	7 contributions that early childhood services make in
10	10	8 strengthening the well-being of communities, the stability of
11	11	9 our workforce, and the quality of our economy, as well as
12	12	10 public safety and national security; and
13	13	11 WHEREAS, The quality of early childhood services depends
14	14	12 largely upon the quality of their infrastructure, ranging from
15	15	13 well-qualified teachers to supportive data systems; and
16	16	14 WHEREAS, Such infrastructure also includes safe,
17	17	15 developmentally appropriate classrooms and related physical
18	18	16 space for young children's care and learning; and
19	19	17 WHEREAS, The availability and quality of early childhood
20	20	18 facilities are an equitability concern for many underserved
21	21	19 populations of Illinois, including communities of color, areas
22	22	20 of pronounced socio-economic pressure, and rural regions; and
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31	31	1 WHEREAS, The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has
32	32	2 stated that high-quality environments not only help keep
33	33	3 children safe and healthy but also facilitate concentration,
34	34	4 ease of play, and more positive child-teacher and child-child
35	35	5 interactions; providing a high-quality environment includes
36	36	6 ensuring such conditions as adequate space, ventilation,
37	37	7 thermal comfort, and lighting; and
38	38	8 WHEREAS, The national Bipartisan Policy Center has
39	39	9 reported that investments in early care and learning
40	40	10 facilities should be an element of federal, state, and local
41	41	11 economic-development strategies; and
42	42	12 WHEREAS, The State of Illinois reflected these realities
43	43	13 in establishing the Early Childhood Construction Grants (ECCG)
44	44	14 initiative in 2009 and growing the grant's resources to $100
45	45	15 million in 2019, with approximately $40 million of that amount
46	46	16 still remaining to be awarded to qualified building-and-repair
47	47	17 projects; and
48	48	18 WHEREAS, Owing to resource limitations, the number of ECCG
49	49	19 grant applications and the needs they represent have vastly
50	50	20 outpaced the number of actual grant awards that could be made
51	51	21 to early childhood providers over the years; and
52	52	22 WHEREAS, In Illinois' mixed-delivery system of early
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63	63	1 childhood services, community-based providers play an
64	64	2 important role by helping relieve capacity pressures on
65	65	3 maxed-out school facilities while also meeting the specific
66	66	4 needs and choices of many parents in their own localities; and
67	67	5 WHEREAS, Community-based service providers typically have
68	68	6 far less access to capital, including the technical assistance
69	69	7 required to seek building resources, than do schools; and
70	70	8 WHEREAS, The vast scope of the State's
71	71	9 construction-and-renovation needs is also evidenced by Early
72	72	10 Childhood Regional Needs Assessments produced in 2023 by Birth
73	73	11 to Five Illinois in which stakeholders from approximately
74	74	12 one-fifth of Illinois counties, ranging from Jo Daviess to
75	75	13 Kankakee to Pope and beyond, expressly named capital matters
76	76	14 among their most pressing concerns; and
77	77	15 WHEREAS, School districts participating in the Illinois
78	78	16 State Board of Education (ISBE) 2024 Capital Needs Assessment
79	79	17 Survey identified the need for building 269 additional
80	80	18 school-based preK classrooms statewide; and
81	81	19 WHEREAS, ISBE's biennial Capital Needs Assessment Survey
82	82	20 captures only a portion of Illinois' early childhood
83	83	21 facilities needs, considering that fewer than half of
84	84	22 elementary and unit districts took part in the most recent
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95	95	1 assessment and that the assessment does not extend to
96	96	2 community-based service providers; and
97	97	3 WHEREAS, A national report from the Reinvestment Fund and
98	98	4 National Children's Facilities Network declared that "limited
99	99	5 supply of licensable facilities, cramped spaces, and deferred
100	100	6 maintenance have been common features of child care
101	101	7 infrastructure for decades," adding that their findings
102	102	8 "suggest a significant remaining need for funding for
103	103	9 facilities infrastructure, from maintaining and repairing
104	104	10 facilities, expanding existing programs, to developing new
105	105	11 high-quality learning environments; and
106	106	12 WHEREAS, In 2019, the Governor appointed a bipartisan
107	107	13 Illinois Commission on Equitable Early Childhood Education and
108	108	14 Care Funding (Early Childhood Funding Commission) that, after
109	109	15 a year of research and expert deliberation, issued
110	110	16 recommendations for making the State's system of birth-to-five
111	111	17 services "simpler, better, fairer" for children and families;
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113	113	19 WHEREAS, The Funding Commission's report expressly
114	114	20 acknowledged the significance of Illinois' urgent
115	115	21 bricks-and-mortar needs, stating that future studies must
116	116	22 assess the costs of facility footprint expansion across the
117	117	23 mixed delivery system to help adjust projections of future
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128	128	1 funding needs; and
129	129	2 WHEREAS, The Funding Commission recommended substantial
130	130	3 increases in birth-to-five programmatic resources that
131	131	4 Illinois has begun to pursue through the Governor's multi-year
132	132	5 Smart Start Illinois initiative, representing important and
133	133	6 desperately needed growth in early childhood program capacity
134	134	7 that will understandably increase physical-infrastructure
135	135	8 needs even further, over time, as more families are helped to
136	136	9 access the services they seek; and
137	137	10 WHEREAS, The Commission and the Governor also recommended
138	138	11 the creation of a single State agency to streamline, improve,
139	139	12 and assume responsibility for the administration of core
140	140	13 birth-to-five services that historically have been spread
141	141	14 across multiple other departments; and
142	142	15 WHEREAS, By an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, the General
143	143	16 Assembly accordingly authorized the establishment of the
144	144	17 State's new Department of Early Childhood via Public Act
145	145	18 103-0594, which also launched a two-year planning process for
146	146	19 development of the new agency; therefore, be it
147	147	20 RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
148	148	21 HUNDRED FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
149	149	22 the new Department of Early Childhood and its planning process
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160	160	1 should prioritize appropriate attention to the facilities
161	161	2 needs of our State's mixed-delivery system of early care and
162	162	3 education; and be it further
163	163	4 RESOLVED, That such prioritization should include
164	164	5 development of a biennial measure of physical-infrastructure
165	165	6 needs among community-based providers of child care,
166	166	7 preschool, and other core early childhood services for
167	167	8 children from birth to age five, as well as continue to assess
168	168	9 the capital needs of school-based providers of such programs,
169	169	10 to better inform state policy decision-making, and reflect the
170	170	11 Funding Commission's call for deliberate assessment of
171	171	12 facility-expansion costs; and be it further
172	172	13 RESOLVED, That the State should move expeditiously to
173	173	14 award its remaining Early Childhood Construction Grant monies
174	174	15 to qualified applicants, to assist providers of critical
175	175	16 birth-to-five programs in meeting their growing
176	176	17 building-and-repair demands; and be it further
177	177	18 RESOLVED, That the State should also move as quickly as
178	178	19 feasible to replenish Early Childhood Construction Grant
179	179	20 resources to help Illinois achieve the long-term vision of the
180	180	21 bipartisan Funding Commission for making services "simpler,
181	181	22 better, fairer" for young children, their families, and
182	182	23 communities statewide; and be it further
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193	193	1 RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be
194	194	2 delivered to the offices of the Governor, the Illinois
195	195	3 Department of Early Childhood, the Illinois State Board of
196	196	4 Education, the Illinois Department of Human Services, the
197	197	5 Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and the
198	198	6 Capital Development Board.
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