Could you part ways with almost 40% of your annual pay to cover childcare, friend? That’s the stunning reality for too many Colorado parents today — even where assistance is available, it’s too tough to access, and the costs are out of reach.

As of this month, nearly 7,500 working families were stuck on a childcare waitlist, or their access to care was affected because of funding freezes. And over half of Coloradans live in a childcare desert, meaning parents have little or no options except to leave the workforce when they have kids.

Putting it simply: Our state is facing a childcare crisis.

As governor, I’ll tackle our need for affordable, quality childcare and hit the ground running on this issue. If you agree that Colorado needs a governor who’s ready to get to work on this urgent issue, will you make your first $5 contribution to our campaign today?

This crisis is complicated. And that means one-size-fits-all solutions won’t cut it. These are just a few of the many childcare initiatives from my plan that I’ll champion as our state’s next governor:

✅ Protecting funding for successful early childhood programs, especially as we face state budget challenges and cuts to federal healthcare dollars.

✅ Unifying childcare services as a user-friendly statewide system because we know navigating the many provider types, programs, and funding streams is too cumbersome for providers and parents.

✅ Signing an executive order on day one to get to work on evaluating what’s broken and begin developing solutions so we can get to work fixing those problems immediately.

✅ Working with voters to show how our state budget constraints throttle our ability to make the high-value investments our kids deserve, and creating flexibility to make those investments.

✅ Forging plans for long-term, sustainable funding by partnering with the general assembly to meet our urgent childcare needs by adopting models we already know work well, like Colorado’s own Employer-Based Child Care Design Lab and Iowa’s Childcare Solutions Fund.

✅ Streamlining rules and red tape through listening and hand-in-hand work with parents, providers, local leaders, and community partners. Because we don’t need to choose between keeping kids safe and helping more childcare providers open their doors — we can have both.

We’ve got a lot of work ahead, and it will take many partners to create the kind of change we need. And it’s work I’m ready to take on as governor — because I’m committed to listening and delivering for every child in our state.

Affordable childcare is critical infrastructure for Colorado. Just like our roads and bridges enable Coloradans to get to work and school, quality and affordable childcare supports working families trying to make ends meet. If you’re on board with our vision for affordable, quality care, will you make a contribution today? >>>

With you for our kids,

Phil