Across urban, suburban and rural communities, families are living in child care deserts — places where there are far more children in need of care than licensed, affordable options available.
For working parents, this shortage is not an inconvenience. It is a barrier to employment, education and economic stability. Compounding this crisis are recent discoveries of child care fraud in Minnesota. If fraud is also substantiated in Washington, it threatens to drain already scarce resources from the very families these programs are designed to help.
That is why defrauding the state of Washington and defrauding working families in need of child care would be especially egregious. In response to recent child care fraud accusations, Gov. Bob Ferguson made excuses.
Attorney General Nick Brown called it “harassment” to legally and legitimately investigate child care fraud, and Sen. Lisa Wellman introduced Senate Bill 5926, which would hide information about child care businesses from public records.
Their responses undermine public trust and trivialize the real struggles of working families.
While Washington works to meet demand for child care, recent fraud investigations underscore the need for stronger oversight. Investigations have already uncovered fraud in Minnesota. Fraud investigations ongoing in Washington state should matter to us all because every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken directly from children waiting for care and parents trying to stay employed. Fraud does not harm an abstract system. It harms real families who depend on these services to survive.
State and national estimates show that only about one in three children who need non-parental care have access to a licensed child care slot. In many Washington counties, especially in rural areas, there are three or more children per available space. Infant and toddler care is even harder to find, often forcing parents onto long waiting lists or out of the workforce entirely. When parents cannot secure dependable child care, businesses lose employees, families lose income, and communities lose economic momentum.
Quality child care is not simply a workforce issue. It is foundational to child development. Decades of research show that children who participate in high-quality early learning programs enter kindergarten more prepared academically, socially and emotionally. These children are more likely to read proficiently, graduate from high school, and earn higher wages as adults. At the same time, reliable child care allows parents to pursue education, job training, and career advancement, strengthening families and stabilizing household income.
Accountability, however, must be more than rhetorical. It must be real, transparent and consistent. Ignoring fraud or hiding it to avoid controversy does not protect children. It leaves them behind. When fraud is concealed, limited resources continue to flow away from legitimate providers and families in need, keeping vulnerable children trapped in cycles of intergenerational poverty. That is a cycle Washington cannot accept and must work deliberately to break.
The families most affected by fraud and mismanagement are working families living paycheck to paycheck. In a child care system already stretched thin, even minor disruptions can force parents to miss work, lose jobs, or turn to unregulated care arrangements that may not meet safety or developmental standards. When funding is misused or when public trust erodes due to a lack of transparency, the consequences ripple outward, deepening inequities and limiting opportunity.
Washington must pursue child care solutions, but equally important is strengthening accountability. That means increasing the number of licensed child care slots, especially in child care deserts, supporting legitimate business and home providers who comply with the rules, and ensuring that fraud is investigated and addressed. Transparency builds trust, and trust is essential to sustaining programs that serve children and families effectively.
Child care is an essential infrastructure for many families, employers, and the broader economy. If Washington is serious about equity, opportunity, and breaking cycles of poverty, it must protect child care resources with honesty and accountability because when fraud steals from the system, it steals first and hardest from the children and working families who need help the most.
Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Chehalis, represents the 20th Legislative District and is the House Republican Caucus chair.
