Demand for child care far exceeds supply in Tennessee, but a bill passed Monday, March 8, by the state Senate could give state employees more options.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis), would allow state agencies to rent out space to child care providers. It passed the full Senate without discussion as part of the consent calendar Monday afternoon with no dissent and three members not voting. 

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Kyle said young parents on Capitol Hill — lobbyists, state government employees and others — have told her how hard it is for them to find decent child care. She said it’s especially hard in big cities, where parents who can send their kids to day care often have to drive across town to drop their kids off, then go downtown for work.

“There’s just not spaces,” she said in an interview. “They just couldn’t find child care. … And it’s causing some young parents to decide, will one of them have to (leave) the workforce?”

Then, those parents who quit have to “build back up their career from the place they left.”

It’s not just anecdotes. Research shows that across Tennessee, the lack of quality options hurts parents and the economy.

About half of the state’s residents live in “child care deserts,” areas where there are at least three times the number of children as there are spaces for them at licensed day care centers, according to a 2019 study published by Tennesseans for Quality Early Education (TQEE). The study also found that almost all parents of children under 5 — 98% — said inadequate child care “hurt their work productivity or limited career opportunities.”

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Overall, TQEE estimated the “dysfunction” of Tennessee’s child care system costs taxpayers and the economy $1.34 billion every year in lost earnings and revenue.

And more often than not, according to the Center for American Progress, mothers are the ones who leave the workforce.

Kyle’s legislation does not require the state to provide child care.

State agency heads would have the choice to use empty space for that purpose. Private, licensed child care companies would rent the space after a competitive bidding process overseen by the Department of Human Services.

Those companies would determine what to charge their customers, the state employees. Local government employees could get in on it too. The General Assembly’s Fiscal Review Committee doesn’t estimate the bill will cost taxpayers any significant amount.

Will those agency heads jump at the opportunity?

“I think so,” Kyle said.

State Rep. Tom Leatherwood (R-Arlington), who’s sponsoring the bill in the House, said customers will benefit from more competition in the market.

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“With any (request for proposals) … you want more than one response, you want some competition there, and so hopefully that will result in good rates for the customers,” he said. “And of course, if the business isn’t going to make a reasonable profit, they’re not going to bid.”

It’s one of the most significant bills sponsored by a Democrat to pass the Tennessee Senate this year. Kyle and Leatherwood said they hadn’t seen any significant challenges.

Last week, all seven Republicans on the State and Local Government Committee approved the bill, along with Kyle and state Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville). In the House, the bill is scheduled for a hearing in a subcommittee Wednesday, March 10.

“I really appreciate the bipartisan effort,” Kyle said.

Leatherwood has five daughters, the youngest of whom is a junior in high school. He and his wife were both school teachers in Shelby County, and when they started having children, she quit her job. After a number of years, she returned to the classroom.

Leatherwood said it wasn’t a tough decision.

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“That was something we had known we wanted to do,” he said.

Their decision cut the family’s income in half, “but we never regretted that time and focus on our children.”

Kyle has four kids too. She said she “patched it together” with church day cares and help from in-laws.

Kyle and Brandon Puttbrese, a spokesperson for Senate Democrats, said they’d like to offer incentives or discounts to state employees, but that’s not in the cards at the moment.

“First things first, let’s start with the supply to meet demand,” Puttbrese said. “There ain’t enough darn spaces (for) the folks who need them… We’re trying to eat this elephant one bite at a time.”