Arizona families are struggling to find affordable and reliable child care, and when there’s no one to watch the kids, the state’s economy takes a hit – as parents are forced to miss work or leave the workforce entirely to care for them. This issue continues to cost Arizona families $3 billion annually in forgone earnings.
That’s why, with hopes of bolstering Arizona’s families and workforce, Gov. Katie Hobbs is asking lawmakers to spend $100 million on the state’s Child Care Assistance program in her budget proposal for the next fiscal year.
The program helps families pay for child care, and is expected to help the families of more than 31,000 children find access to child care they can rely on.
The $100 million is needed, Hobbs’ office said, to ensure the thousands of eligible Arizona families have access to child care assistance as federal COVID-19 relief funds run out.
After the launch of CARES Act in 2020, the DES received an $1.3 billion increase in funding via their annual federal Child Care in Development Fund (CCDF) award. This increase funded the programs that make up the Arizona Child Care Recovery Plan — which helped stabilize the child care network by helping providers stay open during the peak of the pandemic, as well as aid Arizona’s families in affording childcare.
In 2019, low demand for child care assistance and an excess of available funds allowed DES to indefinitely suspend its child care waitlist for the first time since the Great Recession in 2008, allowing nearly 500 families to receive immediate help in paying for child care each month.
When the Child Care Recovery Plan went into effect two years later, it included an initiative to spend over $200 million between July 2021 and June 2024 to maintain the waitlist suspension, cover more of the costs associated with child care, and reimburse providers at a faster rate.
However, with the expiration of the money behind the Child Care Recovery Plan in sight, Hobbs is hoping that the new funding will fill any gaps that may appear when the funds dry up later this year.
About $91 million of the original CARES Act funding from 2021 remains. This money would be moved over to work alongside with the new $100 million subsidy to further the suspension of the waitlist and expand access to quality care, the Governor’s Office said.
In order to do that, she’ll have to convince Republican lawmakers like Rep. David Livingston, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who says it’s not necessary to take the additional $100 million from the general fund on top of the existing $91 million, especially when the state is staring down a budget deficit that legislative budget analysts say will be more than $800 million.
“$100 million is a big deal,” Livingston said. “We would have to cut $100 million more from (state) agencies to do that.”
*This story first appeared in AZ Mirror.
