Once a priority, efforts to address state’s child care desert stalled in Statehouse

Legislation that would help West Virginians access and afford child care has slowed to a halt in the Legislature, despite early signals that it would be a priority this session.

“I’m feeling very discouraged,” said West Virginia Association for Young Children Executive Director Kristy Ritz.

Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, who introduced a bill to financially help parents with child care, said the issue should have been top priority for lawmakers amid the state’s high child poverty rate. 

“It’s a fundamental issue, and we turned our backs on those people,” he said. “It’s embarrassing, and it’s on the House and Senate both.”

Other measures, which included tax credits for businesses, were meant to help the state attract big business investments as Gov. Jim Justice and other Republican leaders have touted multi-million dollar economic investments into the state. Those businesses need child care options in order to attract employees, leaders said.

The state has a glaring child care shortage, with 26,000 kids on wait lists or without care. Multiple counties don’t have a single child care provider.

With a little more than a week to go in the 2024 legislative session, a bundle of bills in the House and Senate aimed at tackling the problem have stalled — largely because of the price tag.

“Many different people have put a lot of time and effort into improving West Virginia’s child care options, and I remain optimistic that we can make a positive impact this year,” said Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam. She has led a House task force focused on child care bills. “The reality of the legislative process is that it sometimes takes a few tries and a few years to turn a proposal into a law, and that becomes even harder when those proposals require budget adjustments.”’

House leadership is continuing to work with the Senate to look at what can be funded as they work on the budget bills, Crouse added.

“If there’s no path forward for all our proposals to be accounted for in the budget bill this session, it’s possible we could see some of those seven bills a little later in the year during an extraordinary session when supplemental funding might be available,” she said.

One of the biggest issues facing child care providers, many of whom said they’re struggling to stay open, is how they’re reimbursed by the state. Right now, they’re reimbursed based on attendance, meaning that the rate constantly fluctuates when kids are out for sickness, vacations and more. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government allowed the state to offer subsidies to child care providers based on enrollment, and the state health department will continue this through August using state and emergency funds. 

A bill that would have changed the state over to enrollment based reimbursement is awaiting consideration in the House Finance Committee. 

“Child care providers are counting down until September when enrollment funding ends and the state reverts to the less stable attendance model,” said Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, who has also led child care reform efforts in the House. “It’s disappointing that the House nor the Senate have prioritized child care as we approach the last weeks of session. I hope they at least appropriate funding in the budget to help lift up our child care system.”

Del. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, said priorities have shifted elsewhere in the House.

“At the beginning of the session, Republican leadership claimed that bills increasing access to affordable and quality child care were a top priority. Those priority bills are dead, while I can’t even keep count of the number of divisive, harmful, partisan bills we’ve debated and passed,” he said.

Justice, while speaking during his annual State of the State address last month, had his own plans for child care help: he called for the development of a “Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit.” 

A House Bill outlining the tax credit, which was estimated to cost $4.2 million, didn’t make it onto the floor for a vote. 

“There is this unbelievably high surplus and our tax estimates came in over the estimates … The money is available to do this to help working people. It’s not welfare,” Woelfel said. 

West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy Executive Director Kelly Allen said Republican state leaders’ short-sighted focus on tax cuts in the last few years could result in fewer child care providers in operation. 

“After prioritizing major tax cuts and flat budgets, lawmakers are beginning to see the consequences — that there are not enough budget dollars left to prioritize meeting our people’s basic needs,” she said.

Ritz agreed that the child care desert was likely to worsen without legislative intervention. Programs may no longer accept families who receive child care subsidies to help pay for care, she said.

“Providers are looking at the possibility of doing private pay only … otherwise they’re going to close classrooms and possibly their businesses,” she said. “There will always be programs that take subsidies, but those programs are now operating in the red a lot of the time. They’re fed up.”