Evers proposes moving $13M more to child care funding in program’s last months

by Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner
July 2, 2023

The Evers administration hopes to spend an additional $13 million in pandemic relief money to provide a small boost to the state’s child care sector over the next six months.

Gov. Tony Evers sent a letter Thursday to the co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to apply what’s left in a federal block grant to the state’s Child Care Counts program, created during the COVID-19 pandemic to bolster child care providers. 

The money covers grants to individual child care providers, who have used it to supplement their revenue so that they can pay higher wages to child care workers and avoid increasing tuition for families.

The requested funds total less than 4% of the $340 million that the administration and child care advocates sought to continue Child Care Counts in the 2023-25 state budget. 

The Republican majority in the finance committee rejected funding for Child Care Counts while assembling the budget, which passed both houses of the Legislature this week. Amendments to restore child care  money to the budget were rejected on party line votes. Providers and advocates have said loss of the program will force some child care centers to raise tuition and others to close entirely. 

The current Child Care Counts funds are part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation to Wisconsin. Evers’ request Thursday relates to money that is part of a federal block grant under ARPA. Under state law, the executive branch  must submit block grant spending plans to the budget committee for a 14-day review period before implementing the expenditures. 

The request to JFC covers $11 million in unspent ARPA block grant funds and $2.2 million in unspent funds that had been set aside for administrative support. The state has to allocate the rest of its ARPA money by the end of September or lose it to the federal government, according to the Evers administration. 

Until June, Child Care Counts distributed about $20 million a month to the state’s day care providers. The Department of Children and Families (DCF), which administers the program, cut the monthly distribution to $10 million starting in June. According to DCF, the reduction, which was announced in April, was forced by a shift in funding from the program from one federal source to another. 

Since late 2021, the Child Care Counts program has paid out more than $378 million to 4,345 providers, the administration reported Thursday, providing care to 113,000 children. Previous versions of the program, from May 2020 to November 2021 and funded by earlier federal pandemic relief, distributed an additional $230 million to providers.

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