The Biden administration wants to lower child care costs. But West Virginia needs to come up with more money to help implement the program

As the 2024 legislative session kicked off, lawmakers seemed to agree that affordability and accessibility to child care were pressing issues for West Virginians.

On the first day of the session, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said on MetroNews Talkline that child care was one of the “greatest barriers” that the state was facing while building the economy. Recalling that bigger employers benefited from a 2023 tax credit to provide their workers with child care services, Hanshaw said lawmakers wanted to help smaller businesses do the same.

Sixty days later, lawmakers hadn’t taken action to make child care more accessible in West Virginia.

Bills introduced that would have provided a child care tax credit to families making less than $65,000, and helped other businesses open their own child care centers died in Senate and House Finance respectively.

As the session was coming to a close, the Biden administration issued a new rule that would cap  child care costs for families receiving subsidies and provide other child care assistance. The rule also mandated an enrollment-based pay for child care centers, which provides more stable payments to child care providers than when parents pay based on attendance.

However, according to a representative with the Department of Human Services, in order to make this happen, they would need an additional $23 million from the state for the remainder of the 2024-25 budget year.

Now, it is up to lawmakers and Gov. Jim Justice to come up with that money through a supplemental budget appropriation. The issue could be part of an expected special session later this month.

Without it, the department said it would have to make the “tough decisions” and possibly limit the families who can qualify for financial assistance for child care.

This would make things even more difficult for West Virginians like Taylor Cross who are already struggling with child care costs.

Cross, a single mother of two, used to work as a medical assistant in Weirton, making close to $20 an hour at a dialysis clinic. She paid $800 a month for child care for her 4-year-old daughter.

Earlier this year, Cross left her job at the clinic and now works as a daycare teacher. At $11 an hour – almost 40% less of her previous income – Cross said she is able to pay for subsidized child care and have some money left over.

“The ends aren’t even met” she said. “Yeah I had a higher salary, but when you’re going into the negative every pay cycle, it’s hard,” Cross said.

She now pays around $110 a month for child care at Miss Tiffany’s Early Childhood Education House in Weirton with the help of subsidies that she now qualifies for.

But, according to the new federal rule, families who receive financial assistance would pay no more than 7% of their annual income in child care.

That, paired with the enrollment-pay model now mandated by the Biden administration, provides more stability to providers, and child care centers like Miss Tiffany’s can potentially keep their doors open.

If the additional $23 million is not provided to the DHS, and fewer families qualify for subsidies, providers like Tiffany Gale, the owner of Miss Tiffany’s, will be at risk.

According to Gale, between 50 to 70% of the parents she serves use subsidies to pay for child care.

“Something has to be done or providers across the state are going to have to shut their doors,” Gale said. “The state that invests in childcare is the state where businesses and families are going to want to stay.”

If the additional funding is not allocated by the state, close to 2,000 families could potentially lose their subsidies, said Janie Cole, the commissioner of the Bureau for Family Assistance at DHS.

Cole, who spoke at the Capitol last month, also said that the most recent data for February of this year, shows that nearly 3,000 children meet the federal poverty line threshold and are receiving services.

“Should needed funding levels not be achieved, those children and families would potentially be affected,” she said in response to a follow-up inquiry.

On Tuesday, Justice reminded reporters that he called in his State of the State address in January for a tax break to help parents with child care costs. He said he expects child care to be discussed during the upcoming special session, but that his priority is to first provide additional money for various programs within the agencies formerly known as the Department of Health and Human Resources.

“Surely to goodness we can get the proper funding back into DHHR and hopefully we can maybe even at least have some dialogue in regard to what we can do for day care,” Justice said. It was not clear if Justice would specifically propose the $23 million needed for the child care subsidy program.

Hanshaw, through a spokesperson, said that he is “not prepared yet to commit to how much and how the state will allocate child care funding in the future.”

House Finance Committee Chair Del. Vernon Criss, R-Wood, said that during the session, child care bills didn’t get much traction in his committee because there wasn’t much push for them by lawmakers.

“Nobody seemed to be asking us for them,” he said. “And finance, we’re trying to put a budget together and doing our budget hearings, and those take the majority of our time. There didn’t seem to be a lot of flavor from our committee or from the House to prioritize that.”

In the Senate, Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, introduced three variations of the same bill that would give tax credits to families making between $30,000 and $65,000 a year to cover child care expenses. All three died in the Senate Finance Committee. Through a spokeswoman, committee Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, declined to comment.

Woelfel is wondering why the child care issue isn’t a bipartisan issue.

“The key issue is this is not a hand out,” he said. “This is a hand up.”

The Biden administration wants to lower child care costs. But West Virginia needs to come up with more money to help implement the program appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.