Today is day 24 of the six day lawmaking session in Frankfurt.

Last week, the House voted to approve the state's two year spending plan.

It includes $70 million in funding for reimbursements to child care providers.

But is that enough?

With $330 million in annual federal funding for the Commonwealth's child care centers set to expire in September, the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy surveyed child care providers on what sort of impact they expect from the gap in funding.

The results of the survey have dire potential for the child care field.

Congress, through four large federal relief bills, sent over $1,000,000,000 to Kentucky's child care sector just to keep them whole during the pandemic and subsequent downturn.

But those funds have either already expired or are going to expired by the end of September, setting up an unprecedented fiscal cliff for the entire child care sector.

We learned that four in ten respondents reported being understaffed and that they're serving 21,000 fewer kids than they would if they could hire enough.

This is despite the fact that nearly nine in ten used the federal funds to improve wages, which are still very low compared to other industries.

Almost 60% reported that federal funding from ARPA kept their centers from closing over the last couple of years.

When asked what they expected would happen once the federal funds ran out, the most likely scenario was that they would have to raise tuition, which half of families already find unaffordable.

After that, providers anticipated having to cut wages, enact layoffs, and in an alarming 199, roughly a quarter of all respondents reported that the likeliest or next to most likely outcome is that they would have to close their program altogether.

Some childcare providers worry that a lack of funding will cause a negative ripple effect throughout their communities.

But hopes of the funds continuing and we will not have to raise child care tuition fees again.

But I am afraid that I'm going to have to raise the fees again.

And I'm sad to say that I will lose a lot of families just due to them not being able to afford childcare and then looking at the big picture, if they don't have childcare, they cannot work.

And that's what I hear from families all the time.

I can't afford child care, but I can't get a job and then ultimately it just hurts our economy and Hopkinsville, Kentucky, even more.

We have so many people needing a job, needing to be hired that they don't have childcare because I'm at full capacity, which thankfully I have not had the staff turnover because I have been able to raise their pay right and keep that pay rate.

I'm sad to say if we do not get we don't have the funds continue, I will have to raise tuition rates, which ultimately I will lose a lot of parents just as they cannot afford it.

So then they cannot work.

So then it hurts us all the way around.

The responses from the survey came from 770 child care centers across 117 counties.

Roughly 40% of all regulated chi