Some San Antonio City Council members are pushing for an early renewal of Pre-K 4 SA, the city-funded early childhood education program.
Pre-K 4 SA leaders laid out a budget for the upcoming fiscal year at a Wednesday City Council meeting that will maintain its current staffing and services. There are several more steps before that budget is approved, but council members were generally impressed with the program that educates 3- and 4-year-old children.
Pre-K 4 SA proposed spending $62.3 million in its 2027 fiscal year budget, which will run from July 2026 to June 2027.
Council members proposed asking voters to renew the program for an even longer period of time before its 2029 expiration. A report published in January showed a strong need for more affordable early child care in San Antonio.
The nonprofit will launch an online family search tool and assist early child care providers in extending child care to weekends and non-traditional hours for military families and other workers in the upcoming year, Baray said.
Pre-K 4 SA is also a partner in the construction of Educare San Antonio, an early child care center for 200 children that will open at Texas A&M-San Antonio in August.
Much of its work next year will stay the same. Sarah Baray, Pre-K 4 SA’s CEO, highlighted the addition of a new South Education Center in October 2025 and the launch of more robust planning and support for families that need to be connected to additional services, like housing, transportation and employment.
The South Education Center has been more successful than anticipated, Baray said.
“One of the data pieces that we collected is around instructional quality, which we thought might be a little lower than in our preschool programs to start, because it’s a new program,” she said. “Actually the baseline scores are very high. We’re very excited about that.”
Pre-K 4 SA will maintain the exact same staffing levels as it had in the previous year — 502 employees. A majority of those will work at its preschools.
The estimated $62.3 million expenditures are higher than the previous year, when the nonprofit spent $58.7 million, but Pre-K 4 SA has seen higher than expected revenues from its sales tax, Baray said. The budget also falls within a multi-year plan to spend its funds by 2029.
Pre-K 4 SA’s board will vote on the budget on April 28 and council members will weigh in with a final approval on May 7.
Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) suggested that city officials push for an earlier reauthorization for the program, rather than waiting until 2028 or 2030.
“Could we realistically put it on the ballot this year?” McKee-Rodriguez asked city staff. “It would make sense to [put it on the ballot] as quickly as possible to know that the money was authorized so that we can work it into the projections for the next several years.”
Council members Edward Mungia (D4), Teri Castillo (D5) and Ric Galvan (D6) also endorsed the idea. Baray said Pre-K 4 SA does not campaign for its own reauthorization.
Pre-K 4 SA’s formation started with a blue-ribbon task force under then-Mayor Julian Castro and was approved by voters for the first time in 2012.
The nonprofit was reauthorized for another eight years starting in 2021 and expanded to include children under three years old. The approvals were to use a one-eighth cent sales tax to fund Pre-K education.
City leaders also want to see Pre-K 4 SA work closely with San Antonio businesses to meet workers’ child care needs. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones touched on the topic Tuesday in her State of the City address hosted by the Greater San Antonio Chamber.
Child care, she said, remains a key constraint on economic participation.
“This is child care. It’s not rocket science. We’re not curing cancer. We either want to fund it or we don’t,” she said.
San Antonio needs tens of thousands more subsidized seats, according to a recent report commissioned by her office, but Jones said the issue goes beyond capacity — touching on access, wages and whether families can realistically make use of available care.
She discussed the issue again during a nighttime tour of Toyota’s Southside factory, highlighting the need for child care beyond traditional daytime hours for workers on night shifts.
Baray said Pre-K 4 SA has had conversations with employers about meeting their needs and connecting them with other early child care providers.
“We can help your employees who are part of the community, but you have to help us figure out how we serve more children,” Baray said. “We’re in the beginning stages of that. We’ve talked to Toyota, we’ve talked with USAA, we talked with a number of employers who say, ‘what are the possibilities of how that could help?’”
