Federal funding for child care during the pandemic has run out.

That money prevented 1000 child care centers in Kentucky from shuttering, according to the national progressive think tank The Century Foundation.

Is this the timely end of another COVID 19 relief program or the return to a dismal child care marketplace?

Our newest reporter, June Leffler, is looking into this story and has more.

Thanks, Renee.

I'm joined now by Dustin Pugel.

He's the policy director of the left leaning Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Dustin, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

How has this federal funding saved the child care industry since it was rolled out in 2020?

The federal government stepped in and through several different packages, provided over $1,000,000,000 in funding to just Kentucky's child care centers.

In many ways, that really saved the industry from further decline.

And it also meant that we were able to improve the program that provides assistance to folks who need it by increasing the income eligibility limit, by providing higher reimbursement to those child care centers, by allowing child care workers themselves to bring their own kids to child care with them.

So it's really been a game changer for the industry in a lot of ways.

And if we hadn't had that, we probably would have lost even more child care centers than we already have up to this point.

And the funding has expired as of September 30th.

That was last Saturday.

So we're still early into this change.

But what do you anticipate will happen to these child care centers?

Bush's administration has said they've found enough money to provide one more payment this year that they plan on sending out in December.

And so I don't think we'll see the effect of the expiration of that federal money quite yet.

But it does give the child care centers enough runway to get through at least the early months of next year while the General Assembly makes a plan for how they're going to deal with that.

So as the General Assembly looks at funding next year as they work on their two year budget, what would you recommend to them on this issue?

How to support child care centers?

Yeah, I think if we've learned anything over the last couple of years, it's just how important child care is not only to the kids who use that child care center, but also to the greater economy, because we know that parents need an affordable and available place that is high quality where they can live with their kids while they're at work.

And so the result of even the child care system that we have now is that 93% of young fathers are at work, but only about 64% of young mothers are at work.

And so if the General Assembly wants to make sure that we have enough capacity for all mothers and fathers who want to be able to enter the workforce or stay in the workforce, they're going to have to make sure our child care centers stay open, and that's going to require significant investment.

So Kentucky's Employee Child Care Assistance Program got off the ground this summer.

It matches the child care costs that an employer pays.

The pilot program allocated 15 million state dollars, which are to be spent by June of next year.

How has this program worked?

Are employers utilizing it?

Do we need to do more?

Yeah, the program is an interesting way of trying to support employers who want to provide a child care benefit to their employees.

I think it's a helpful tool in the toolbox.

I think it's good that the General Assembly is trying new ways of supporting working families.

But like you said, it's a $15 million program in the midst of a $300 million hole that we're facing.

So while it is a useful step forward, it's nowhere near enough to be able to handle the magnitude of the problem that we're facing.

And so far, only a few dozen families have been able to utilize that program.

So it really hasn't seen the kind of uptake that we might have hoped.

So, you know, again, we're comparing about, you know, several dozen families to 160,000 spots in child care, a little over 300,000 kids under age six.

So it's a useful project, but it's not going to fix the problem that we're facing.

That was Dustin Pugel.

He is the policy director of the left leaning Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Dustin, thanks for joining me today.

Thank you.