Cutting PDG Funding Undermines Minnesota’s Progress
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A Mischaracterization of State-Led Work
On May 2, 2025, Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), sent a letter to Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, outlining a sweeping set of proposed federal budget cuts that would directly affect services for children from birth to age five and their families (PDF here).
The letter, accompanied by a 40-page attachment, includes proposals to eliminate or significantly reduce multiple programs that form the backbone of early childhood support. In addition to ongoing signals about dismantling Head Start, the administration laid out plans to cut:
Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) – a program that supports child care for student parents in higher education, helping them persist in their studies and achieve economic stability.
Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) – traditionally used for housing and infrastructure, but increasingly tapped by communities to help fund nonprofit child care as a public service.
Among these cuts, the Preschool Development Grant (PDG) was explicitly targeted. Vought justified eliminating PDG funding as part of an effort to “balance the budget and restore public confidence in the government’s fiscal management.” On page 10 of the attachment, PDG is criticized for funding “capacity building and strategic initiatives” instead of directly funding preschool services.
Minnesota was specifically called out for using PDG funds to support work centered on intersectionality and racial equity—framed in the memo as an example of inappropriate federal overreach. This article focuses on PDG not only because of its critical role in Minnesota’s early childhood infrastructure, but because the state was directly singled out in the administration’s justification.
That framing fundamentally misrepresents both the purpose and the value of PDG. In Minnesota, PDG is not a vehicle for ideology; it is a strategic investment in systems-level coordination, designed and driven by local and state leadership to meet the diverse needs of families. PDG enables Minnesota to build equitable, community-informed early childhood systems, grounded in regional input and responsive to disparities in access and outcomes.
Eliminating this funding alongside other foundational programs would not restore fiscal discipline. It would destabilize the early care and education ecosystem that helps families thrive, supports the workforce, and sustains the state’s long-term economic health.
Equity and State-Led Innovation
PDG funding enables Minnesota to coordinate outreach and engagement efforts across urban, suburban, and rural communities. The program doesn’t dictate how services are delivered; it supports the infrastructure that ensures all families, especially those historically underserved, can access early childhood care and education.
This includes technical assistance, communications support, and alignment across programs like:
Community-based child care providers
Local nonprofits engaging families with young children
PDG funding allows the state to act as a convener, ensuring that these systems don’t operate in silos and that family and community voices remain at the center.
Leveraging Cross-Sector Collaboration
A powerful example of PDG in action is the Outreach and Connections Collaborative, launched in 2023. This group includes staff from:
Minnesota Department of Education
Department of Human Services
Department of Health
Department of Corrections
Department of Employment and Economic Development
Alongside community organizations such as:
Parent Aware (Minnesota’s Quality Rating and Improvement System)
Help Me Grow (Parts B and C)
This cross-agency, cross-sector group demonstrates how PDG supports the creation of lasting partnerships that help families navigate and access critical early childhood supports. This kind of coordination is not overhead; it is impact.
Geographic Responsiveness to Community Needs
Minnesota’s geography presents unique and persistent challenges. As highlighted in the Greater Minnesota: Refined & Revisited report by the Minnesota State Demographic Center, many rural regions of the state face population decline, economic uncertainty, and difficulty retaining working-age adults. Addressing these issues requires investment in the systems that support young families.
What is a child care desert?
A child care desert is any census tract with more than 50 children under age 5 that contains either no child care providers or so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots.
Screenshot taken from the interactive map feature of childcaredeserts.org
More than a quarter of young children in Minnesota live in child care deserts, creating significant barriers for families seeking care and for communities striving to retain working-age adults. These deserts are especially prevalent in Greater Minnesota, where long travel distances, lower population density, and limited provider capacity make access to care even more difficult.
Meanwhile, the child and youth population is shrinking in most regions outside of the seven-county metro and parts of West Central Minnesota, further straining the availability of care and limiting the potential for economic growth in many communities.
PDG enables Minnesota to respond to these demographic realities by funding locally grounded solutions, such as:
Establishing Community Resource Centers to connect families to services ($5.5M over 4 years)
Expanding early childhood mental health consultation in school-based settings ($1M annually)
Supporting “Grow Your Own” workforce pipelines in early childhood education ($2.5M in year one)
These strategies are Minnesota-grown—developed and led by communities and scaled through state coordination with PDG support.
A Strategic Investment, Not Federal Overreach
PDG doesn’t impose a system on Minnesota; it empowers Minnesota to build the system it knows its children and families need.
Critics of PDG have labeled the program a tool for ideological influence. Yet Minnesota’s inclusion of principles like intersectionality and racial equity stems from years of community engagement and data-driven policy work. These values are not abstract; they reflect real disparities that families and communities have consistently called out as barriers to well-being and opportunity.
Far from politicizing early childhood education, Minnesota’s approach has focused on building bridges across sectors and advancing a mixed-delivery system that works for all families.
Conclusion: Preserve What Works
PDG is a strategic investment that strengthens—not replaces—state and local leadership. It allows Minnesota to address disparities, build workforce capacity, and coordinate fragmented systems. Cutting this program under the guise of reducing federal control would, ironically, undermine states’ ability to lead.
If we care about reducing disparities in early childhood and family well-being, PDG is part of the solution.
Let’s not dismantle a system that works. Let’s support it, improve it, and expand it.
Take Action: Your Voice Matters
Photo by Michal Biernat on Unsplash
Now is the time to act. We encourage you to:
Contact your elected representatives at both the state and federal levels, and tell them why PDG matters to you.
Share your story, whether you’re a parent, an early childhood educator, a health provider, or a concerned community member.
Remind policymakers that early childhood programs supported by PDG benefit all Minnesotans, whether you have children or not.
These programs support the economy by allowing caregivers to work, attend school, or pursue job training while knowing their children are in safe, high-quality environments. When families don’t have to choose between stability and care, our entire state benefits—from stronger workforce participation to better outcomes for children.
Let’s make sure Minnesota can continue to lead, not just in early childhood policy, but in building a system that works for everyone.
Rural Pathways works at the intersection of policy, practice, and partnership to build strong child care systems in rural communities. Contact us to learn more.
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References
Office of Management and Budget (2025). Memo to Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, May 2, 2025.
Minnesota Department of Education (2024). PDG Renewal Grant Narrative and Budget Justification.
Minnesota State Demographic Center (2023). Greater Minnesota: Refined & Revisited.
Child Care Aware of Minnesota (2024). Child Care in America: 2024 Price & Supply Report.
Citation: Anderson, Charity & Gilpin, Staci. (2025). Cutting PDG Funding Undermines Minnesota’s Progress. Rural Pathways News.