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Q&A
State funding and childcare voucher funding gap
3:32:04
·
3 min
Council Member Stevens inquires about the recently notified childcare voucher funding gap. Commissioner Dannhauser explains the situation:
- ACS has been in regular communication with the state about the growing demand for childcare vouchers
- Enrollment in low-income vouchers has increased from 7,000 to 62,000 children in three years
- There's a projected funding gap of $125 million for the current fiscal year and $860 million for the next
- The increase in demand is partly due to changes in work requirements that will qualify more families for mandated childcare vouchers
- ACS has been engaging with various state offices and the legislature to address this funding gap
Althea V. Stevens
3:32:04
A state childhood cliff and advocacy plan I think is definitely we need to kind of talk about.
3:32:13
State funds make up 2727.7% of ACS budget in fiscal twenty twenty five and twenty four point five percent in fiscal twenty twenty six.
3:32:22
Non city funding constituents approximately 67% of ACS funding for fiscal twenty twenty five and 2026.
3:32:34
Over 4,100,000,000 of the two fiscal years.
3:32:37
This funding is critical for various ACS programs including child care, foster care, and prevention preventative programming for youth.
3:32:45
In my opening statement, in your opening statement you indicated that the need from the state budget this year for child care vouchers is $2,000,000,000 with a gap in funding of approximately 1,000,000,000.
3:32:57
ACS notified the council of this child care voucher funding gap last week.
3:33:02
When did you first become aware of this issue actions did you first take?
Jess Dannhauser
3:33:07
So we have been in conversations with the state every single month, both at the deputy commissioner level and at the commissioner level.
3:33:17
So I'm gonna sort of take us back just a couple years, Chair, just to sort of describe what's going on.
3:33:22
So we had a real opportunity because of some of pandemic rollover funds.
3:33:28
There was less childcare being used.
3:33:30
There was also some pandemic related investment in childcare.
3:33:35
And so a couple years, three years ago now, were at about 7,000 children enrolled in low income vouchers.
3:33:41
Today we're at 62,000.
3:33:43
We have worked extremely hard, led by D.
3:33:46
C.
3:33:46
Welkimer and her team, to make sure families can get access to those supports.
3:33:52
We have with encouragement from the state all along.
3:33:56
We've been providing them our projections.
3:33:58
We have been making sure that they understand what we're claiming.
3:34:01
They've been encouraging us to increase our claims so that we didn't leave any rollover money on the table.
3:34:07
This was absolute co planning thing with the state.
3:34:11
We began to let them know months ago that we were looking like we were going to run out of funds, that we were going to go over that cliff.
3:34:20
They wanted us to continue to see the claims that were coming in.
3:34:24
They made a 20% increase in the fall in the rates to providers which is excellent, but have not yet put any resources in to cover that.
3:34:35
So that accelerated us getting to this point.
3:34:39
Currently for federal fiscal year '25, which we're currently in, we need about $125,000,000 additional dollars.
3:34:47
And for next federal fiscal year we need about $860,000,000 Much of this relates to the fact that the work requirements will increase the number of families who qualify for a mandated child care voucher from HRA.
3:35:02
We expect by the end of the calendar year, early twenty twenty seven, HRA will have issued around 60,000 vouchers.
3:35:10
So with that growth and the growth that we've already created is why we need that money.
3:35:16
So we have been talking to the state all along.
3:35:19
We have had conversations with the governor's office.
3:35:22
We've had there's been conversations with the division of budget.
3:35:26
We and then have engaged the state legislature and then more recently engaged the council.