Efforts to overhaul Montana’s child care industry taking shape, sparking mixed reactions

Carly Graf, Missoulian, Mar. 20 2026

Coming out of the 2025 Legislature, where child care shortages were framed as one of the most pressing issues facing Montana families, the state government hung its hat on a complicated albeit innovative solution to bolster the beleaguered industry.

But the fix — investing a pot of money from which interest earnings can be used to fund child care initiatives — has been slow to roll out, and its impact has yet to be felt on the ground.

Most counties in the state lack enough licensed child care spots to meet demand, and providers struggle to hire workers because they can’t afford to pay them livable wages.

What was billed as a one-of-its-kind multi-million dollar investment in child care has left some underwhelmed and asking for swift, decisive action that will help families and providers. Supporters of the effort encourage patience, and note that a solution to the industry’s woes won’t be a quick fix.

"I understand how complex all of this is,” said Grace Decker from the Montana Advocates for Children, a statewide coalition of providers. “I will also say that the needs and issues that people are experiencing in the field have only become more acute since the end of the last legislative session, so people are really waiting for some kind of long-term support or relief … and we are still waiting to see what the board is going to do to deliver that relief.”

The 2025 Legislature set aside $10 million as seed money in what it named the Montana Early Childhood Account to fund child care projects. Some of that sum can be spent up front while the rest will earn interest over time. A board of governor-appointed members decides how to spend those revenues on industry-boosting initiatives such as continuing education, workforce grants and tuition subsidies.

The account was a line item in one of the Legislature’s most contentious proposals, a 53-page bill with a broad title that, by the time of its passage, was worth more than $900 million and jam-packed with different proposals, among them a child care investment.

House Bill 924, dubbed the Growth and Opportunity Trust, became a landing place for measures that didn’t necessarily have enough legislator buy-in on their own, but could be muscled through as a compromise when paired with other items.

Before being tucked into HB 924, a version of the early childhood account was pitched as a standalone in Helena Democrat Sen. Laura Smith’s Senate Bill 565, which would have put $150 million from the general fund toward the cause.

SB 565 made it through the Senate, but failed to pass out of a House committee. It lived on in HB 924, the megatrust architected by Conrad Republican Rep. Llew Jones that garnered the ire of hardline GOP legislators, but at that much smaller $10 million price point.

Smith, who featured prominently in the politics of the 2025 Legislature, acknowledged the lesser dollar figure was a necessary compromise to get the measure through both Republican-led chambers and signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte.

“Child care shouldn’t be political, and yet any issue that comes before the Legislature is going to inherently be political, so we made a choice to recognize that HB 924 was a method by which we could make a once-in-a-lifetime investment in child care,” she said in an interview this week. “That was worth the compromise to me because what we got out of it was the largest child care investment we’ve had in the state.”

As of this week, there have been four meetings of the early childhood board, which falls under the purview of the Montana health department, with another scheduled for later this month. There are no recordings available to the public, but the department publishes meeting minutes.

According to these recaps, the governor's budget office recommended spending no more than $3.5 million in the first year so there would be a larger sum to carry over and earn interest in future years. Board members agreed, and set that cap on their own expenditures.

“I think it’s a smart approach because what we don’t want to do is come into a hearty sum of the interest, blow through it and not be able to sustain those improvements to the system,” Smith said.

The board voted unanimously to move forward with a plan to distribute the $3.5 million in the form of competitive grants that providers can apply for to address their unique issues. Decker said she’s heard from businesses that the piecemeal grant approach doesn’t quite hit the mark.

“What providers have learned is that grants come and go, and most providers will not establish any kind of ongoing benefit or wage increase to their staff with grants that come and go,” she said. “What I’m hearing from providers is that they are eager to see the state implement a permanent workforce support initiative of some kind and grants are not that.”

Board members chose against another proposal that had broad support from providers. It would have renewed a recently-lapsed pilot program that gave subsidies to the children of child care professionals so that working parents could stay in the industry and afford the tuition of the place that they work.

“Child care workers are holding the system together at great personal cost, and we cannot keep asking them to do that without real support,” said Sophia Helmer, the owner of a Missoula child care facility, at the Feb. 3 meeting. “We can't build new programs on top of a workforce that's barely surviving. Fix the workforce first or nothing else we build will last.”

The board’s dismissal of the measure was the idea’s second rejection in less than a year. The 2025 Legislature passed House Bill 456, which would have codified and expanded the program, but it was vetoed by the governor, who cited in his veto letter the early childhood trust as doing enough on its own to address the child care shortage.

“I’m disappointed that the board doesn’t seem to recognize that there was a ton of support for the bill,” said Jonathan Karlen, a Missoula Democrat and the bill sponsor.

Jon Ebelt, a spokesperson for the health department, said the board is working diligently to get the $3.5 million out the door, and said next steps will be to establish priorities for the grants and develop the bid process.

“The governor has confidence in the members of the committee and looks forward to seeing their results,” said a spokesperson for Gianforte.