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Emergency child care funds to restore subsidy for some
by Jeff Horwich, Minnesota Public Radio
November 6, 2003

Of the 300 children in Minneapolis YWCA child care programs, about 75 percent are from families that receive state subsidies. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)

Three Minnesota counties will receive an emergency injection of money to help families who lost state child care subsidies in recent months. Ramsey, Dakota and Clay counties will get a total of about $300,000 dollars. Officials say the money will partly make up for the unintended consequences of state cuts to child care this spring.

St. Paul, Minn. — Lawmakers fighting the $4 billion state budget deficit cut $87 million from the state's child care subsidy program. After changes to the eligibility rules, about 1000 families no longer qualified for state assistance.

Almost 400 other families did still qualify, but lost their subsidies anyway. This is because the child care budgets allocated by the legislature did not always give counties enough to cover their caseloads. When the money ran out, families were cut based on how recently they'd joined the program. Barb Yates, state director of child development services, says these families included so-called "extreme hardship" cases, including teen mothers.

"There were some teen parents that were pushed to the waiting list, so that was one example of where we thought that if we could identify some resources to be used for a short period of time, that might be all a person needs to get their diploma," Yates says.

Officials with the Department of Human Services found $300,000 dollars in a federal fund for child care "quality improvement." This is money meant for child care provider training or improvements in child care facilities. But the three counties, through a bit of creative but legal accounting, can apply it to a portion of the families who should never have lost coverage.

More than half of these families were in Ramsey County. With average child care costs of about $750 a month, the $200,000 dollars the county receives will probably assist 30 to 45 families. Carol Rhode is executive director of Resources for Child Caring, which administers the subsidies for Ramsey County.

"We're really thrilled that the state was able to find some dollars so we can help some families," Rhode says. "But 30 is a far cry from the 213 that were eliminated from the program. It's also not a permanent fix for them because it's only about a seven month period of time at best that these funds will cover child care for these families."

	Pederson: "Bandaid on a major hemorrhage"

In Dakota County, officials will decide which of 49 families will share an extra $47,000 dollars. Officials in Clay County had to deny subsidies to 36 families who qualified. The county will get an extra $33,000 dollars, which would provide about two months of coverage if it were split among all the families. Joe Pederson directs the Lakes and Prairies Community Action Partnership, the county's child care referral service.

"It's like putting a bandaid on a major hemorrhage," Pederson says. "Does it help? Yes, of course it helps, any funding you get helps. But it clearly is not going to correct the problem and even for these families correct the problem."

State child services director Barb Yates says the one-time injection is not meant to address the structural changes made by lawmakers. But the $300,000 dollars could be the pilot program for a permanent emergency child care fund, set up to quickly address hardship cases that fall through the cracks.

"If that works, the legislature might want to look at putting a proposal forward to have that kind of flexibility in the future," Yates says.

Hennepin County could be an early candidate for any permanent emergency child care fund. Hennepin has the most subsidy cases in the state, but will not receive any of the $300,000 dollars. That's because a $2.2 million annual boost from Hennepin County government kept any extra families from being cut this summer.

But the county's proposed budget cuts that support. That change, along with new licensing and inspection fees, could mean more than 250 families lose their subsidies, almost as many as Ramsey and Dakota counties combined. And for now, state officials say they've just given away all they had to give.

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