As state lawmakers deliberate the next two-year budget, Kentucky’s childcare providers say they need more state investment to compensate for expiring federal funds.
The state’s childcare centers have received $330 million a year from Congress since the start of the pandemic, but those grants will run out by the end of September.
Cora Beth Brown owns The Children’s Academy in Hopkinsville and said on Wednesday that she’ll be forced to raise tuition.
“I’m sad to say I’ll lose a lot of families due to them not being able to afford childcare," Brown said during a digital press call with reporters hosted by the left-leaning Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. "Big picture, if they don’t have childcare, they cannot work. That’s what I hear from families all the time.”
A survey by KCEP found that without the federal support, most childcare facilities would have to raise rates, impose layoffs, or close.
The survey found a majority of child care operators used the expiring federal grants to increase the wages of the notoriously low-paid workforce.
“I believe that if I walk back pay raises, I’m going to be walking employees out the door,” said Krista Hughes, director of Hickory Grove Daycare Preschool in Kenton County. “There are so many higher paying opportunities popping up in our community.”
KCEP Policy Director Dustin Pugel noted childcare providers are seeking more state support at a time of record budget surpluses.
“Legislators could fund the entire cliff, all $330 million, and still have a lot of leftover, recurring funds to invest in our other priorities," Pugel suggested.
Crafting a 2024-2026 state budget is dominating this year's General Assembly session. Pugel and other advocates said the proposed House budget by Republicans is inadequate for addressing the impending fiscal cliff in the childcare industry.
"This is the industry that supports all industries and so we need to see it as a community benefit, a societal benefit, said Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health. "It's something we all need to invest in as taxpayers."
Kentucky’s child care providers had been closing their doors for nearly a decade, but the federal funding brought that decline to a halt by the middle of 2020 and has sustained approximately 2,000 providers since that time.
