CHARLESTON – Providers and advocates for childcare in West Virginia are pleased funding has been found to hold off a looming shortfall in childcare subsidy funding until the end of the year, but they’re not pleased with how this was communicated.
Several childcare advocacy groups rallied Sunday in front of the Capitol on the first day of August legislative interim meetings. The groups called on the Department of Human Services and the Legislature to work on the long-term need of expanding access to available and affordable childcare.
“Childcare providers like myself are doing everything we can to keep our doors open,” Jennifer Trippet, owner of Cubby’s Child Care Center in Bridgeport. “We are stretched thin, trying to balance skyrocketing expenses and the need to provide fair wages to our teachers who are the heart of our programs.”
“Childcare funding is a bipartisan issue that affects everyone: children, families, businesses, and entire communities,” Trippet continued. “It is essential to economic growth and workforce development. When parents can go to work or pursue education and training programs, they contribute to our economy. When they cannot, the entire community suffers.”
In April, DoHS told lawmakers the department would need $2.3 million per month, or about $23 million, to fund the Child Care Assistance program at the current rate beginning in September for the remaining 10 months of the current fiscal year. The additional funds were needed to abide by new federal rules that take effect in September requiring states to fund childcare providers based on enrollment at individual facilities instead of attendance.
While the Child Care Assistance program would continue, not having the additional funding would mean a reduction in services. Advocates for childcare estimated based on DoHS testimony that about 2,000 childcare slots would be gone after August if the state didn’t provide additional funding.
During a May special session, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1001, a bill restoring more than $5 million to the Department of Health and more than $183 million to DoHS. The bill created reserve funds in both departments for the restored funding.
The bill allowed the secretaries of the departments to transfer money out of these new reserve funds to provide money for other line items. Lawmakers have since said DoHS had the authority to transfer money from that fund to cover the $23 million needed for the childcare subsidy, though some called for a special session to make a supplemental appropriation of available surplus tax collections from the end of the previous fiscal year that ended in June, with lawmakers addressing long-term funding in the next budget bill beginning in 2025.
Despite several news outlets requesting comment from DoHS regarding how it intended to address the shortfall, those requests for comment went unanswered. But Gov. Jim Justice announced Friday, followed by a press release from DoHS, that money had been found to keep the Child Care Assistance Program funded based on the enrollment formula through the end of December, the first half of the current fiscal year.
Both Justice and DoHS accused media and childcare advocates of pushing “inaccurate” reports about a “funding crisis” childcare.
“Everybody was running around all over the place, saying we have childcare centers that are folding up right and left and we’re not going to have childcare. A lot of it is unfounded,” Justice said Friday during his weekly administration briefing. “With that being said, we’ve got funding, and we can do it.”
“Supporting our childcare providers and the families they serve is a top priority for Gov. Justice and the Department of Human Services,” DoHS Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily said in a statement Friday. “We are doing everything in our power to ensure stability for both providers and families, while including the Legislature as the appropriating body in discussions regarding budgetary and funding items.”
Childcare advocates pushed back against Justice and DoHS Sunday, accusing the executive branch of trying to gaslight providers and advocates.
“Recently, the Department of Human Services has made claims suggesting that we, those of us who work tirelessly in this industry, are confusing or misleading the public by stating that 2,000 children will lose their childcare when funding runs out in September,” Trippet said. “But let me be clear, this number, 2,000 children, and the timeline of September came directly from DoHS. Now they’re trying to change their story, and in doing so, they’re undermining the very real crisis that our families and providers are facing.”
Laura Shimenga is a Wheeling native who now works as a public school teacher in Southern West Virginia where she lives with her husband and two sons. She said a third of her income goes toward childcare for her children.
“That’s more than $13,000 a year, and that’s with me having my kids two months out of the year,” Shimenga said. “If I weren’t a teacher, I’d be paying even more. Essentially, we are punishing parents for working. If the State of West Virginia would help to subsidize childcare costs across the board, that would give every West Virginian the ability to work.”
“Funding childcare means adding more women to the workforce,” Shimenga continued. “Adding more women to the workforce means adding more workers to the economy. Adding more workers to the economy is growing our economy.”
According to data provided by both the pro-business West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the pro-labor West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, the state was already facing a significant childcare shortage due to low reimbursement rates and staffing shortages. Both have called for making enrollment-based funding permanent and to consider increasing subsidies.
Amy Jo Hutchison, the West Virginia campaign director for MomsRising, said the childcare issue goes beyond just workforce issues. Access to childcare means fewer reports of abuse and neglect for children, more support for foster children, and support for parents in active substance use disorder recovery. Most importantly, Hutchison said childcare is the backbone of the working class.
“It’s the workforce behind the workforce,” Hutchison said. “Most of our childcare staff are working for poverty wages and qualify for the safety net issues. So, whenever we hear that there may be a funding shortfall and 2,000 children may lose their childcare subsidies, that’s 2,000 West Virginia children of working parents.”
Several lawmakers attended Sunday’s rally, including state Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia. Several childcare facilities have closed in his district, including the Owlet Childcare Center in Fairmont.
“A person’s income shouldn’t dictate whether or not their child can be in a safe place to learn and grow. And folks who are in the lower-income categories need subsidies to be able to ensure that their child is in a place where it’s safe,” Oliverio said. “Right now, we face a real challenge of rising costs of childcare and incomes that are not keeping pace with that. We need as a state to invest in our children.”
House Minority Whip Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, said Justice and the Republican-led Legislature have been all talk and no action on long-term planning for childcare. Several bills offering tax credits to businesses offering childcare, tax rebates for parents, and different cost-sharing models were never taken up by lawmakers. And a special session originally talked about for this week was never called.
“We have a lot of talking and little action, and I think it’s a top-down approach,” Fluharty said. “We’re hearing testimony here today where we have school teachers paying upward of a third of their salary going to childcare. That’s crisis mode. It goes to the family infrastructure that we’re lacking here in West Virginia and it’s a decision-making process for families who want to stay in West Virginia. That’s why they’re on their first train out when it comes to things like this.
“If we are going to be a state that truly cares about children and in this so-called pro-life state, we need to start acting like it and, and supporting childcare, which is pro-life and supports the family infrastructure, which we’re not doing right now,” Fluharty said.
