An early educator at Ready Set Jump Learning Center in east Fort Worth walked up to her boss, Felicia Davis, excited to tell her some big news.

She’d bought new tires for her car.

Fixing the broken child care industry will require a significant increase in public funding, according to Tarrant County leaders.

The county is one of the few bright spots for child care in the nation, but still faces affordability and workforce issues.

Cost models—a generic term for tools that help estimate expenses and expected revenue for businesses operating under certain conditions—can provide a significant amount of data to assess early childhood initiatives.