As Colorado struggles through an unprecedented child care shortage, state lawmakers seek to invest $100 million into the industry with a new bipartisan bill.

Introduced on Tuesday, Senate Bill 213 would use $50 million of economic recovery and relief money and another possible $50 million in federal funds to pay for staffing, training and expansion of child care facilities. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee is scheduled to consider the bill on Monday.

Bill sponsor Rep. Kerry Tipper said rising child care costs and shrinking availability have made life extremely difficult for Colorado parents, including herself. The Lakewood Democrat said the financial burden of child care has led her to question the feasibility of her political career.

“I thought it’s not worth it for me to be in the legislature because I barely make the money that I need to cover child care,” Tipper said. “I know that a lot of women feel that.”

In Colorado, an average family with two young children spends $28,600 – or 14% of their income – on child care annually, according to federal data. Single parents fare even worse, paying on average 49.5% of their income on infant child care at Colorado centers, according to a Child Care Aware of America report.

Some families can’t find child care at all. In Colorado, 51% of residents live in “child care deserts” where there are more than three times as many children as there are licensed child care slots, according to Mile High United Way.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic closed around 7% of licensed child care centers in Colorado, providers only had the capacity to serve 62% of the state’s 246,000 kids under 6 whose parents both work, according to a report that cited 2019 figures. That meant a shortage of more than 90,000 child care slots statewide.

“The pandemic exposed glaring gaps in our state’s child care system, and it’s hurting Colorado’s families and our economy,” said bill sponsor Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora. “This bill will help us provide critical support for working families across Colorado who have been doing their best to make sure their children have a safe place to learn and grow during the workday.”

Under the proposed bill, $19 million would go towards opening new child care centers and expanding capacity at existing licensed child care facilities. Another $10 million would create employer-based child care facilities for business owners to provide employees with on-site child care, and $15 million would fund an existing grant program to train and recruit child care staff.

The bill would also delegate $4.5 million to train informal child care providers, such as babysitters, nannies and family members, on the best practices for teaching, fostering emotional development, nutrition and first aid. Around $1 million would be used to create new family-strengthening grant programs.

The potential $50 million in federal funds would be used to implement the Child Care Sustainability Grant Program, offering licensed child care providers between $2,100 and $31,500 to spend on employee pay, benefits, training or hiring additional staff.

Fields said the bill would help address Colorado’s workforce shortage by creating jobs in child care while also allowing parents – especially moms – to go back to work.

“In order for them to get into the workplace again, they have to make sure they can leave their child at a trusted, vetted facility,” Fields said. “The most stressful moment in my life was trying to find someone to take care of my kids.”

From February 2020 to January 2022, 1.1 million women left the workforce nationally, accounting for 63% of all jobs lost. In July 2021, 7.7% of jobs in Colorado were unfilled – an all-time high for the state, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The bipartisan bill – also sponsored by Sterling Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg and Denver Democrat Rep. Alex Valdez – has received no opposition so far. Organizations, such as Parent Possible, Mile High United Way and Executives Partnering to Invest in Children, have already thrown their support behind the bill.

Lorena Garcia of the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition said the bill represents a “historic” step towards Colorado finally fulfilling long-awaited promises.

“Colorado has made a commitment to support families and children who use all forms of care and not until this bill … are we actually seeing the state put their money where their mouth is,” Garcia said. “If we don’t support the high quality of child care in all forms of care, then we’re not actually doing what we claim to do.”

Access to child care is a priority of the Polis administration, which earlier announced injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the child care industry, whose members warned of more closures because their operations are no longer sustainable. State officials said $271 million in grants are available to help Colorado’s nearly 5,000 child care providers pay for operations and other services, such as mental health and counseling.