Free Daily Headlines

Politics

Set your text size: A A A

Shutdown threatens daycare for 551 local children

By Bill Moss, Published: October 15, 2013

Working parents will be without subsidized child care and daycare center operators fear they may have to lay off employees or even close because the government shutdown has cut off the federal child care subsidy program.


The program, run through county departments of social services, supports day care for 551 children in Henderson County and affects 54 child care centers, said Elisha Freeman, the executive director of the Children and Family Resource Center.
"Yesterday the news came to the DSS directors about the stop in funding for child care subsidies so as of Friday there is no child care subsidy for 551 children in Henderson County," Freeman said. "The big picture is that child care subsidy is for working parents or they have to be enrolled in school. To be able to show up at work on Monday morning they have to have child care in place. It's a big deal."

 

She said it's assumed that the program will resume if Congress passes a budget to reopen the government before the scheduled Friday cutoff.
For a few daycare centers, the halt in the subsidies could mean they will get zero dollars because 100 percent of their children are covered by the program. Others will have to decide, she said, whether they can afford to remain open and take the children at no cost.
The DSS, Children and Family Resource Center, United Way and the Community Foundation are meeting with daycare providers tonight to decide what to do. Many of those agencies also plan to attend the regular meeting of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday to voice their support for the program and ask for temporary help. In McDowell County, Freeman said, commissioners had agreed to temporarily cover the cost of child care subsidy.
The program helps businesses and families, Freeman said, because it ensures parents can work. It helps parents stay employed or in school, she added, and it helps pay for child care workers. Parents pay a portion of the child care fee.