WASHINGTON — Conversations about childcare in Washington are heating up as new legislation proposes expanding public information exemptions to all childcare workers, not just those working from home.
Senate Bill 5926, pre-filed in December 2025, aims to prevent harassment, doxxing and retaliation by expanding exemptions for personal information of licensed or certified childcare providers.
Critics argue this bill could obscure necessary information from the public.
Jim Walsh, Chairman of the Washington GOP, expressed concerns about the bill.
“What this bill would do is limit the public’s ability to access the paperwork: the documents, the records that are related to these grants, these payments made by the state, to the child care centers,” Walsh said.
The bill proposes to include exemptions for names, photos, addresses, dates of birth and contact information of individuals. If passed, this information would not be accessible through public requests.
“This bill would make it harder for anyone to review the record and see how the money is being spent,” Walsh said.
Walsh believes the bill is bad policy and could hinder independent investigations into childcare fraud in Washington.
“The availability of those records, those documents is essential to the investigative journalists looking into the potential for fraud going on in this space,” Walsh said.
The bill does clarify that business addresses, program capacities, licensing statuses, inspection results and public safety findings required by law would remain accessible. Despite this, Walsh is not convinced these reports compensate for the proposed exemptions.
“In my opinion, the answer is no,” Walsh said. “The bill as drafted would damage the public’s ability to review public documents.”
Licensed home childcare providers already have personal information exemptions, approved by voters in 2016.
NonStop Local asked Walsh if the previous legislation caused the same conversations.
“In a very preliminary way, yes, that the earlier conversations about child care dollars and government dollars going to childcare and, and childcare subsidies have focused less on specific instances of fraud and more on the matter of how the subsidy dollars, the government money was being spread around,” Walsh said. “There’s been an argument for a number of years of Olympia that the childcare support dollars were concentrating in urban settings and not being distributed more evenly around the state.”
According to Walsh, the current debate has morphed to focus on whether taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently, shifting away from the distribution of childcare services across the state.
The bill’s language indicates that childcare providers in licensed centers face safety risks, doxxing and harassment, prompting the need for expanded protections.
“Nobody wants anyone to get doxxed. I mean, that’s understandable but this bill goes too far in hiding essential information about taxpayer money being paid to businesses, in a way that would be damaging to the public good or to the public interest,” Walsh said.
NonStop Local reached out to Senator Wellman, the bill’s sponsor, but she was unavailable for comment.
However, her office did say that the bill was pre-filed on December 22, four days before a viral video in Minnesota alleged childcare fraud in that area, and stemmed from several childcare workers in Washington who approached Senator Wellman about their concerns.
