The Office of Childhood submitted documentation of pending child care requests to access payments for the 53% of Missouri providers impacted by the federal delay
By:Steph Quinn and Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri Independent
Missouri has submitted “detailed justification” required to access federal funding owed to almost 2,000 child care providers across the state for services rendered in December, according to a Friday press release.
The Office of Childhood in the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which found it could not access the funds earlier this week, had been unable to explain the delay to child care providers because it had not received communication from the federal government before Thursday evening.
“We know how important these payments are to providers, and this is our utmost priority,” said Office of Childhood Assistant Commissioner Deidre Anderson-Barbee in the press release.
The department submitted a “comprehensive breakdown” Friday morning to meet the requirements of a federal initiative called “Defend the Spend,” its spokesman told The Independent. Defend the Spend, a system created by the now-dissolved Department of Government Efficiency, requires recipients of federal funds to justify each transaction before they can receive payment.
Although the state office has submitted the required documentation, child care providers still don’t know when they can expect to receive payment.
Lisa Scheer, director of Baden Christian Child Care in St. Louis, told The Independent that the message from the state office brings little relief.
“It’s an answer, but it’s not an answer anyone wants to hear,” Scheer said. “To be honest, there’s not going to be an answer until they say, ‘We’re paying you.”
Scheer said her child care center relies heavily on the federal funds because each of the 45 children the center serves participates in the subsidy program. Families in Missouri must earn no more than 150% of the federal poverty level to qualify.
“Our families really rely on our services for food, for safety,” Scheer said. “We provide area transportation and really just a safe haven for our neighborhood and community.”
U.S. Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill on Dec. 30 announced in a social media post that all states would be required to justify their child care expenses in order to access support from the federal Child Care and Development Fund.
On Monday the federal department froze child care payments to five states — all with Democrat-led governments.
The state’s Office of Childhood said Friday that the federal request for information about Missouri’s child care subsidy program indicates “Missouri child care funds have not been frozen.”
Before that communication, the cause of the delay wasn’t clear.
Casey Hanson, deputy director of Kids Win Missouri, told The Independent that the uncertainty has made the funding disruption more painful for child care providers who operate on very tight margins.
In a meeting of around 160 providers Wednesday, Hanson said, many were “frustrated and upset.”
Some providers who mostly serve families who receive subsidies “are at a point to be turning [those families] away, especially if they don’t have reserves, and a lot of small providers really don’t,” Hanson said.
Scheer, who was in the meeting, said she’s trying to delay costs where she can. She agreed with her husband that she won’t draw a paycheck until federal funding comes through. But she realizes her employees, who are mostly single women, can’t do that.
While Scheer said she is committed to keeping her doors open, she’s not sure how long the center would be able to operate without subsidy payments.
“It’s trying to make sure my employees’ needs are met so that they can still show up for children, so children’s needs are met, so that parents can still go to work and be parents for their children,” Scheer said.
“It’s just a lot of unknown.”
