Federal funding that helped prop up the childcare industry during the COVID pandemic is about to end, and that means the state will have to make difficult decisions about what programs to continue and what to cut in 2021.
Kentucky received $470 million through the American Rescue Plan Act.
Also known as ARPA for sustainability payments.
Those payments covered operational costs like payroll expenses and potential revenue losses.
Those funds are set to end in September at the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children's Meeting on Tuesday, Representative Samara, Heaven of Litchfield, asked if the Cabinet for Health and Family Services planned to fund the sustainability payments once they run out.
She added that she is not sold on the idea of the General Assembly funding the payments.
But there's going to be a bleed somewhere and I think a lot of us here in the General Assembly are still trying to figure out is that government's place to help with sustainability payments, because if it's a broken system, how do we need to revamp that to help child care owners be able to to fix that?
You know, like what can we do?
Because I'm not sold on continuing the sustainability payments.
So one thing I can say is that the startup grants that we offered, there was a requirement for those individuals to go through a strengthening business practices, training to really think about marketing, budgeting, making sure you've for family, childcare, you've paid yourself, you know, what's your overhead, all those things besides just I'm going to care for children, but you know, all those other things that they need to do.
So we have been focusing on that, especially with the startup grants we have, again, the Trainers Academy that we did for director Skills Budgeting is included in that to where that's a state wide effort that we have because that we heard that as well.
The business acumen was not there.
I can also tell you that child care continues to be on everyone's radar.
The state also received $293 million for one time Child Care and Development BLOCK grants, which funded startup grants, tuition support and facility updates that is set to end next year.