WE’RE IN THE LAST WEEK OF THE 2024 LEGISLATIVE SESSION!

It has been an incredibly busy few weeks since our last legislative update. Session is wrapping up, and bills are starting to reach the finish line. Friday, March 1, was the last day for bills to be passed in the Legislature. All they need now are signatures from the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate before being delivered to the Governor on their way to becoming law.  

We are excited to highlight some of the significant bills that passed the Legislature in 2024.  

Early Learning: Streamlining affordability and system sustainability 

It has been a good session for our youngest Washingtonians, as nine of the early learning bills we tracked have passed the House and Senate! 

Working Connections Child Care 

Families need safe, high-quality education and care for their children; however, child care and early learning programs are often one of families’ biggest expenses. Simultaneously, the child care professionals charged with the care of our precious little ones are usually paid far lower than other teachers, which exacerbates Washington’s child care shortage and makes it harder for families to find care. The passage of three specific bills will help ensure more children can enroll in high-quality early learning. 

First, the combination of financial challenges is thoughtfully addressed in House Bill (HB) 2124. This bill helps families participating in certain early learning programs like the Birth-To-Three Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (aka early ECEAP) access Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) subsidies when they meet other requirements. It simultaneously expands WCCC eligibility for child care providers who work in certain early learning programs, which helps providers afford to enroll their own children in high-quality early learning.  

Another bill, HB 1945 streamlines eligibility for WCCC by counting SNAP benefits as verification for income requirements.  

Finally, recognizing the complexity of eligibility updates, HB 2111 clarifies requirements to help ensure eligible families are able to access child care subsidies.  

Paid Family and Medical Leave 

This session has also addressed system requirements and improved access to Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML). Parents need to have meaningful access to PFML. This is true for all parents and professional fields, including early learning.  

Senate Bill (SB) 5793 takes an important step to ensure that the legal definition of “family” for PFML is inclusive and applies to chosen family. Relatedly, HB 2102 adds a requirement that PFML certifications must be processed in a timely manner, which should not exceed seven days. 

Background Checks for Providers 

For early childhood educators, fingerprint-based background checks serve as an important part of the hiring process. When qualified early learning professionals do not have an easily accessible location to complete their fingerprinting, it can delay or even prevent caring staff from beginning work. 

SB 5774 helps improve the number of locations available by requiring at least seven Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) offices to offer background check services. Importantly, the bill directs that locations be thoughtfully chosen to minimize the distance any child care provider may need to travel to complete their background check. 

Early Intervention Services 

We also want to highlight important new developments in early intervention services for our early learners. When children start services with Early Support for Infants and Toddlers (ESIT), the first month is critical. Early intervention specialists take great care to ensure they understand each individual child’s strengths, context, and areas where support is needed to ensure that the program created for the child is thoughtful and effective.  

HB 1916 features a technical fix in the way that ESIT services are counted to include that first month of intervention. This is crucial to ensure that funding is appropriately allocated to providers. 

Early Learning Facilities and Prohibiting Discriminatory Book Bans 

Finally, we want to applaud the passage of HB 2195 and HB 2331.  

HB 2195 helps to improve the quality and availability of early learning facilities by increasing funding opportunities for early learning facilities project (ELF) applications.  

HB 2331 helps to ensure that learners have access to a diverse range of learning materials by revising guidelines for including instructional materials and prohibiting discriminatory book bans. 

The Capitol Building - image courtesy of Merrill Images

Health Equity: Improving access to behavioral health care 

On the behavioral health side of things, several promising bills have passed the Legislature. This suite of bills should continue Washington’s positive trajectory toward improving health outcomes for everyone in the state.  

Behavioral Health Providers 

It is no secret that there is a lack of available resources and services in the behavioral health landscape in Washington. Long wait times, high costs, and limited availability are all barriers to care. These issues were targeted by HB 1946 and HB 2247, which both take steps toward providing equitable and accessible care.  

HB 1946 will add behavioral health providers to the list of professions eligible for conditional scholarships through the Washington Health Corps on the condition that graduates commit to serving under-resourced communities that may have a uniquely high need for more behavioral health care access.  

HB 2247 will streamline the licensing process for behavioral health providers as well as alter some of the supervision and practicum requirements, allowing the state’s future efforts to take effect more quickly and simplify the process through which new providers will become licensed to provide care to their communities. Both bills were recommendations by the Children & Youth Behavioral Health Work Group (CYBHWG). Importantly, the CYBHWG has been extended and expanded thanks to HB 2256.  

Crisis Services for Minors 

SB 5853 also passed the Legislature. This bill expands crisis services available to minors by extending the 23-hour crisis relief centers to serve minors as well as adults. These centers, created by a 2023 bill, aim to embed crisis relief services in communities and reduce the load on hospitals and emergency rooms struggling to meet the demand for behavioral health crisis services.  

Improving Health Access and Outcomes 

Beyond behavioral health, we also saw several other health-related bills pass.  

SB 5580 and HB 1957 both passed the Legislature. These bills improve health outcomes for new birthing persons and protect access to preventative medications, respectively.  

We also saw SB 5829 and SB 5983 pass. SB 5829 will add congenital cytomegalovirus, a virus related to chickenpox, to the list of required screenings for newborns. SB 5829 will enact recommendations made by a sexually transmitted infections (STI) legislative advisory group in 2022 to prevent the spread of syphilis.  

Economic Justice: Improvements through multi-year advocacy 

This year was a challenging one to pass bills related to economic justice and progressive revenue. A number of these bills did not make it past the various cutoff dates due in part to limited funding for new programs. However, we were able to make progress in one area: the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC). Thanks to HB 1895, the WFTC will soon become simpler to apply for and more accessible to working folks across the state.  

While economic justice and progressive revenue struggled to make waves this year, we have high hopes for the future of our economic justice agenda. 2025 will present us with a new governor, many new legislators, and a full-sized budget, allowing advocates to push for bigger, systemic changes that may have been too ambitious for a supplemental year.  

So, what happens next? 

Budget 

During the final week of session, legislators will work together to finalize details of the 2024 supplemental budget. Negotiations will continue in private conference before a final budget is released.  

Bills 

Additionally, bills that passed both chambers but were amended in the second chamber will need to be sent back to the chamber of origin. For example, a House bill that passed both the House and the Senate and had an amendment proposed in the Senate will need to go back to the House to see if there is agreement on the amendment, or if the Senate is willing to move forward without the amendment. If neither of these occur, a conference committee can negotiate a new version to be voted on by both chambers. As long as one of these three options is successful, the bill will have passed Legislature and can be sent to the Governor to become law. Importantly, Washington state law allows for a bill to become law with or without the Governor's signature.  

March 7, 2024, is sine die (aka the final day of regular session). On this day, the Legislature will be indefinitely adjourned until next January!