Overview

The Maine Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS) is committed to supporting access to affordable, high-quality early education and care for children and their families throughout the state. The state made nation-leading investments to sustain child care providers through the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to explore effective approaches to supporting child care providers’ ability to attract and retain a qualified workforce and provide high-quality experiences that meet children’s and families’ needs. Understanding the cost of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services—and the key cost drivers experienced by child care providers—is an essential first step in developing an overarching and effective financing strategy for Maine’s child care system.

OCFS engaged The Center for Early Learning Funding Equity (CELFE), to study and develop a model to understand the cost of providing child care in the state and use this research to provide recommendations on the child care subsidy rate structure and other strategies for improving the child care funding system. This work aims to address ongoing challenges, such as improving child care affordability, raising compensation for the child care workforce, and ensuring access to high-quality child care across the state. Maine joins a small but growing number of states that are completing in-depth studies of the cost of child care to inform their child care funding policy.

Learn more about our work together in the final report.