Election 2024: Bucks County State House candidates talk child care

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Candidates for the state House in Bucks County participated in a conversation about child care at the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce Wednesday evening.

Republican Reps. Joe Hogan and KC Tomlinson joined Democratic candidate Anna Payne in answering questions on key issues such as retaining child care workers and funding early education programs at the candidate forum hosted by Child Care Voters, a project of Children First Action Fund.

Hogan and Payne face off in the race to represent the 142nd District. Tomlinson represents the 18th District. Invited candidates who did not show included her Democratic challenger Anand Patel, Democratic 144th District incumbent Brian Munroe and his Republican challenger Dan McPhillips.

Participants agreed on almost all topics discussed and the conversation, moderated by Bill Ferrara, executive director of the Lower Bucks Chamber of Commerce, was amicable.

Valerie Hamilton, founder and chief executive of Children of God Educational Services in Bristol, said it was “extremely positive” to hear candidates focus on how best to support childcare providers.

“We focused on children and families as we expanded the child tax credit at the state level,” she said. “Now they’re worried about us providers, and that makes me feel really good and promising as a business owner, small business owner and woman of color here in Bucks County.”

Here are some of the key topics the candidates addressed:

State funding for early childhood education

All three candidates support increasing state funding for early childhood education.

“We need to talk about investing in our future, and that’s how we start,” Payne said. “We start investing in our children from a young age. Statistically, we know that 90% of their brains are developed between the ages of one and five, right? So we have five years in which we can make a real difference in this child’s life. Still, too many people are missing out because we don’t invest enough.”

Hogan agreed with Payne, noting that the topic is personally relevant to him – he and his wife are expecting their first child “any day now.”

“I don’t think there’s any downside to additional funding for these programs, but what we need to do, and I see a lot of providers in the room and some of the facilities that I’ve visited or stopped by over the last two years, we need to do it make it easier for you to stay in business,” he said. “We need to make it easier for you to recruit and retain employees, and that’s not a question of dollars and cents in Harrisburg. This is a regulatory issue… We need to make it easier for you to run your business.”

Tomlinson said she has “consistently” advocated for funding for early childhood education.

“I supported record funding in both the Wolf and Shapiro administrations,” she said. “In 2022 alone, we invested over $325 million in programs like Pre-K and Head Start. Of course, there is still much work to be done and I will always support these efforts.”