1. (1) Beginning December 1, 2026, and every month thereafter, the Education and Labor Cabinet, in coordination with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, shall compile and produce a monthly report providing a comprehensive snapshot of all licensed and certified child-care providers, Head Start services, child care services regulated by the United States Department of Defense, and state-funded public preschool services operating within the Commonwealth.

2. (2) The report shall include statewide and regional counts of the number of each of these services at the time of the snapshot, and to the greatest extent possible provide additional information, including but not be limited to:

   1. (a) The name and physical address of each service provider;
   2. (b) The type of licensure or certification held by each service provider;
   3. (c) The licensed capacity of each service provider;
   4. (d) The number of child care and early childhood education professionals at each service provider, and in total on a statewide and regional basis;
   5. (e) Whether or not a program’s services are half-day or full-day;
   6. (f) The actual enrollment by age group of each service provider, if available; and If actual enrollment is unavailable, an estimated actual capacity reflecting the
   7. (g) number of children the provider can accommodate based on operational considerations, including staffing levels and available physical space.
3. (3) The report shall be organized at both the statewide and regional or county level.

4. (4) The Education and Labor Cabinet shall make the report publicly available through a searchable, user-friendly online database. The database shall:

   1. (a) Be updated monthly;
   2. (b)
   3. (c) Be maintained in a manner that supports access and use by the public, Include a historical archive of past reports; and policymakers, and researchers.
5. (5) This section shall not be construed to authorize the release of personally identifiable information of enrolled children or staff.
6. (6) As part of the first report on December 1, 2026, the cabinet shall include a historical analysis of the availability of child care and early childhood education services on both a statewide and regional basis to illustrate how the availability of child care services in the Commonwealth has changed over time.
7. (7) By July 1, 2027, or earlier if determined feasible, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services shall develop and implement processes to track the real capacity of licensed and certified child care services in the Commonwealth. The cabinet shall ensure that its processes are minimally burdensome on licensed and certified child- care providers. To the greatest extent possible, the cabinet shall collect and report real capacity information for individual age groups of children.
8. (8) The cabinet shall make information on real capacity available to the public and shall report this information to the Education and Labor Cabinet on at least a quarterly basis.
9. (9) Beginning July 1, 2027, the Education and Labor Cabinet, in coordination with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, shall develop and publish an objective quarterly report comparing the supply of licensed and certified child care services in the Commonwealth to the potential need for child care services. This information shall be made available on a statewide, regional, and county-level basis and is intended to help policymakers and individual communities understand gaps between available child care services and the potential need.

10. (10) As used in this section:

    1. (a)
    2. (b)
    3. (c) "Potential need for child care services" means children under the age of six
    4. (6) with all available parents in the labor force according to the American Community Survey; "Real capacity" means the number of children that a child care service is actively enrolling in its program at the time in which the analysis of real capacity is being conducted; and "Supply of licensed and certified child care services" means the total number of children under the age of six (6) that child care services within a geographic area are actively enrolling at the time in which the analysis is being conducted. If this information is not available, the total licensed capacity for licensed and certified services may be used, provided that capacity is restricted to services for children under the age of six (6). The report shall also include an accounting of services provided by the United States Department of Defense, the Office of Head Start, and state-funded public preschool programs.
11. (11) The report shall utilize a distance-based methodology to account for cross-state and cross-county interactions between children and licensed and certified child-care providers. The report shall be made publicly available.

Effective: April 14, 2026

History: Created 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 146, sec. 6, effective April 14, 2026.