We have been reporting about budget cuts, rising homelessness and scarce child care on the blog lately. Well, now we can talk about some good news. Roughly half of the Washington state families waiting for child care subsidies can now receive aid.

In recent months, the Department of Early Learning has been forced to make a series of changes to the subsidies program, known as Working Connections Child Care, to help close the massive state budget deficit. For example, Washington policymakers already lowered the limit for subsidies to families earning less than 175 percent of the federal poverty line from 200 percent.

The Department did not find a big new river of resources. Instead, enough families left the program, said DEL spokeswoman Elizabeth Winter, to allow 1,431 more families on the waiting list to qualify for child care aid, though they have to respond within ten days.

Washington House Democrats’ Budget Good for Early Learning: In other good news, Washington state House Democrats released their budget proposal to close a $4.4 billion deficit, and it would preserve funding for the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, the state-supported preschool initiative.

It also funds a school readiness program, WAKids, a pilot project that assesses where students are when they start kindergarten and a key element of Washington’s plan to create a more integrated pre-kindergarten to third grade system.

In addition, it would continue funding full-day kindergarten at schools with high percentages of low-income students, according to a DEL update.

We will dig deeper into the proposed budget and a plan expected from the Senate in the coming days.