FORT MADISON – A new study bill on the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives has legislators looking into the possibility of regionalizing early child care services in the state.
House Study Bill 623 would eliminate local decision making and prioritizing of child care services in Lee County and lump them into a regional sector with 14 other counties with a combined 17,000 young children.
The move would essentially eliminate the Lee County Children’s First program which is currently overseen by Director Ginger Knisley, who’s also the chairwoman of the Lee County Board of Supervisors.
The new structure is proposed to have seven regions in the state and establishes a formal Early Childhood and Family Services system within HHS. It also organizes early-childhood services into seven districts that mirror the HHS Behavioral Health districts established in 2024 to improve access to mental-health services for Iowans of all ages. The districts, roughly of equal size geographically, vary greatly in the number of young children who live within them - from barely more than 12,000 to more 72,000.
The bill phases out the existing Early Childhood Iowa governance structure, which is comprised of 38 areas and a statewide board. This structure has existed in similar forms since 1998, as Empowerment until 2010, and as ECI since then. It also loosens ECI’s focus from children under age 6 and their families to one on “families and their children under 19 years of age, with an emphasis on children under six years of age, and transfers ECI responsibilities and funding to the new ECFS system by July 1, 2027.
Knisley said rural communities suffer under any type of regionalization.
“We have seen clearly over the years that rural communities suffer when any service or sector is regionalized,” she said.
“Not only the direct loss but also the loss of local partners' confidence in and willingness to contribute to the effort.”
Knisley, who has been involved in the county’s Early Childhood Program for the past 18 years, said there’s legitimacy in lean design, but local voices and decision making needs to be maintained.
Regionalization also inherently strips away Home Rule governance in the state.
“That’s a very real concern,” she said. “We are certainly seeing a trend in the direction of reverting back to what we had several decades ago before we knew better and built systems around the knowledge that decisions are best made closest to those they impact.”
The Early Childhood Program in the county has also been ever-present in tangential programming such as The Child Abuse Prevention Program of Lee County; SAFE Coalition in Van Buren County; Southeast Iowa regional child passenger safety; Drug-Free Communities federal funding for Keokuk; Friends of Lee County childcare; and other provider care forums within the county.
Knisley said her biggest fear is the loss of any focus on early childhood.
“Children birth to five are not small adults. It is a very specific and critical time in development that impacts lifelong outcomes,” she said. “Remove resources and attention from that point in development, and you will see a decline in outcomes.”
She also said those partnerships are jeopardy.
“This legislation repeals ECI, decategorization, CPPC, and the child abuse prevention program and fund. We have many local initiatives intertwined with these various systems all working together. That would all vanish.”
Lee County still hovers near the bottom ranking of Iowa counties when it comes to child poverty, abuse, and neglect. Knisley said the county has been facing the uphill battle for decades and taking away local control won’t work.
“We have been treading water for decades on these stats and facing generational systemic factors. Removing local ability to keep trying to assist is not the answer,” she said.
The bill was introduced earlier this week and has been moved into House subcommittees for further deliberation.
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