Early Education: FY 2026 Appropriations
By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy
When the legislative session came to a close on Thursday, April 3, 2025, the legislature went home without passing a budget for the state government, including an appropriations bill for the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) and the Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS). On Wednesday, May 28, 2025, Governor Tate Reeves called a special session for the legislature to approve a state budget.
This post highlights key early education investments in the finalized FY26 budget, including continued support for Mississippi’s pre-K programs and a historic increase in funding for child care assistance.
The Early Learning Collaboratives (ELCs)
In 2013, Mississippi First co-authored the legislation to create the ELCs, the first state-funded pre-K program in Mississippi. In the FY26 budget, the legislature reaffirmed its support by maintaining level funding for the program with a $29M appropriation and a $3.25M appropriation for the program’s coaches. This continued investment allows us to keep recruiting new communities to help us achieve our goal of reaching 50% of four-year-olds in Mississippi.
The legislature also continued its appropriation to a line item pre-K program called the State Invested Pre-K Program (SIP) with a $13M appropriation. This program was created to support school districts and encourages, but does not require them to partner with local Head Start or childcare providers. Additionally, the program does not require a local match.
Childcare Investment
The legislature approved a historic $15M appropriation to the state’s Child Care Payment Program! This is an incredible win for Mississippi’s youngest learners and their families, especially in light of recent funding shifts that have led DHS to right-size its budget.
Recognizing Early Childhood Champions
We’re grateful to the elected leaders who continue to champion early childhood education in Mississippi. We could not do this work without the leadership of Governor Reeves, Lt. Governor Hosemann, Chairman Roberson, Chairman DeBar, and Representative McCarty. We thank you!
To see more about how early childhood education fared during the regular legislative session, please see our previous blog post here.
Related Posts
Editor’s Note: This post is one in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to the federal role in early childhood in Mississippi. By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy This blog post is the third in a series that highlights the impact of federal funding for early childhood on both families and communities throughout […]
Editor’s Note: This post is one in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to the federal role in early childhood in Mississippi. By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy We want to continue to explore the impact of federal early childhood programs in Mississippi. This blog post is the second in a series that […]
Editor’s Note: This post is one in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to the federal role in early childhood in Mississippi. By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy As Congress weighs funding decisions for fiscal year 2026, we want to explore the impact of federal early childhood programs in Mississippi. This blog post […]
Jackson, Mississippi—Mississippi First is proud to announce the release of its newest report, 2023 Public Perception of Early Childhood Education in Mississippi, which provides valuable insights into Mississippians’ views on the importance, affordability, and accessibility of early childhood education. The survey results underscore the widespread public support for pre-K and early learning initiatives across the state. […]
Editor’s Note: This post is one in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to early education policy in Mississippi. *** By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy A lack of wage parity is a longstanding issue in the early childhood profession. Childcare teachers, Head Start teachers, and public pre-K teachers have vastly different salaries and access […]
By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy After four legislative sessions, we are excited to announce that our bill to permanently raise the per-pupil funding rate, HB 817, passed! The Governor signed the bill into law on April 17. This bill increases the state share of per-pupil pre-K funds from $2,150 to a minimum of $2,500 per […]
Editor’s Note: This post is one in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to early education policy in Mississippi. *** By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy The educator pipeline crisis, which Mississippi First has researched extensively, also affects childcare centers, Head Start, and public school pre-K programs. In short, finding early childhood teachers is as […]
Editor’s Note: This post is the first in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to early education policy in Mississippi. *** By Micayla Tatum, Director of Early Childhood Policy This past summer, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Mississippi First, and other partners convened early childhood providers and advocates with the goal of centering provider voices in creating a set of recommendations […]
The 2022 legislative session was a wild ride for pre-K. Our bill to permanently change the per-pupil funding rate, HB 1246, died late in the session due to unrelated politics. This bill would have increased the state share of per-pupil pre-K funds from $2,150 to $2,500 per child—an increase of $350 per child in state funds […]
This is the fourth and final brief in the State of Pre-K Series. The 2021 pre-K briefs as a whole provide strong evidence that the collaborative program is the path to expanding quality pre-K statewide. Today, we are releasing the fourth and final brief of the series. The fourth brief provides pre-K access data on the […]
This fall, we surveyed all the Mississippi early learning collaboratives to get a clearer picture of the challenges and successes they experienced during the COVID crisis in the 2020-2021 school year. The information collected was published in our newest report titled, Resilience: Pandemic Impact on Early Learning Collaboratives (2020-2021). We gathered information in six key areas: […]
This is the third brief in the State of Pre-K Series. The 2021 pre-K briefs as a whole provide strong evidence that the collaborative program is the path to expanding quality pre-K statewide. Mississippi First releases a third 2021 pre-K research brief demonstrating the benefits of pre-K for children living in poverty. Since our founding, Mississippi […]