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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
IPS: Some families must pay for pre-K after budget cuts
This story will be updated. Some Indianapolis Public Schools families will start having to pay for pre-K for the 2025-26 school year after this latest state budget didn't include increases to childcare grant funding and the district's pandemic relief funding is now gone. The district alerted families to the change on June 3 and said it came 'after much consideration of the financial impact on IPS' caused by alterations in the state budget this legislative session and loss of COVID money. In this latest state budget passed in April, lawmakers did not include an increase in funding for Indiana's popular child care subsidy programs, known as On My Way Pre-K, which helps give low-income families vouchers to use for child care. IPS had been heavily relying on those vouchers, as well as COVID-19 relief money sent to districts in the past few years, to fund its pre-K program, making it free for every family in the district for at least the past two school years. However, school districts had to spend those pandemic relief dollars by the end of 2024, and the state announced in December that it would have to bring back its waitlist for the On My Way Pre-K program due to significant growth and not enough funding. More on the waitlists: Indiana lawmakers expanded access to child care aid. Now there's not enough money This latest state budget passed by lawmakers did not address those waitlists and instead funded them just enough so families currently using the vouchers wouldn't be affected. Starting with the upcoming school year, IPS is implementing an income-based sliding scale to help ensure the program can remain funded. If families qualify and apply for the On My Way Pre-K program, they could still access a pre-K seat in IPS for free, if the voucher program has enough funding. Some families may find themselves on the waitlist for this upcoming school year. Here is the sliding scale that IPS is implementing for the next school year: Income-Based Sliding Scale Cost (Per week) Free (Qualifies for SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid Free — below 130% of Federal Poverty Level) $0 (MUST complete On My Way Pre-K application to be eligible or have a CCDF voucher) Reduced (Qualifies for Medicaid Free at 130% to 185% of Federal Poverty Level) $100/week Full Pay (Does not qualify for any of the above) $150/week To qualify for a voucher, a family's household income must be below 150% of the federal poverty level, or for a family of two, earn below $2,644 per month before taxes. More on IPS using the vouchers: A new requirement for IPS families seeking pre-K seats is coming next school year For a family of four, the household's monthly income before tax must be less than $4,019 to qualify for the pre-K voucher. The child's guardian must also be working, going to school, attending job training or looking for a job. The child must also be four years old by Aug. 1 and plan to start kindergarten next school year. For families who need help filing out an On My Way Pre-K application, they can email reach out by emailing earlylearningdept@ or call 317-391-1897 or 317-391-7643. For families needing Spanish-speaking assistance, they should call 317-619-4279. The district will also be holding an application assistance event from 2-4 p.m. on June 10-11 at the IPS Education Center located at 120 E. Walnut St., Indianapolis, IN 46204. Contact IndyStar K-12 education reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@ Follow her on Twitter (X): @CarolineB_Indy. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis schools ends free pre-k for all families after budget cuts
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Officials Sound Alarm Over Delayed Federal Child Care Payments to States
The Trump administration has failed to send out an estimated hundreds of millions in discretionary funding to state child care agencies that should have gone out weeks ago, five sources in the federal government and advocacy organizations confirmed. The Child Care Development Block Grants (CCDBG), which states mostly use to provide subsidies to low-income families, were anticipated to arrive around April 1, the start of the federal fiscal year's third quarter. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'The money hasn't gone out, and that is extremely unusual,' said Ruth Friedman, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who served as director of the Office of Child Care at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) under the Biden administration. Emily Adams, policy associate for child care & early childhood programs at the American Public Human Services Association, concurs. Adams works directly with state child care agency directors across the country, and one told her they were notified by their regional child care office that ACF's Office of Grants Management said the funding has not yet been approved for awards and there was no timeframe for when the grants might be approved. In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson at the Department of Health & Human Services, said, 'ACF is working to award third quarter discretionary CCDF funding as soon as possible.' The CCDBG is part of a complex system of federal child care funding. The largest source comes from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which has two components: mandatory payments made through the Child Care Entitlement to States, which states have already received, and the much larger pot of discretionary CCDBG money, which they haven't. Congress determines the level of CCDBG spending annually and has allotted $8.75 billion to states for the 2025 fiscal year that ends in September. It usually takes two weeks for these block grants to flow to states after Congress passes a continuing resolution funding the government, which it did on March 14. Officials in the Biden administration sent out the first and second quarter funding to state child care agencies on a normal schedule. But the third quarter installment hasn't gone out under the Trump administration, Friedman, Adams and other sources confirmed. Unlike Head Start programs, which face immediate consequences if their funding is delayed, states typically have more cushion for child care, so they may not yet have to make hard choices. That's in part due to the fact that they have a longer time to spend the money, so some may have past funding to keep using. Also, some states put more of their own money into the mix than is required by federal rules, creating even more runway in those places. Related 'Most states have about a month of funds that they can use before they're in big trouble,' Adams notes. But if the money doesn't arrive soon, 'It is eventually going to cause a problem for states,' Friedman explains. The vast majority of the funding covers subsidies that help low-income families pay for child care; if that money dries up, states will have to stop paying for those subsidies. If that happens across all states, the parents of the 1.4 million children who receive them could be left to either cover the full cost themselves or pull their children out of child care. Providers, in turn, could face a wave of unpaid bills and disenrollments. 'It would be extraordinarily destabilizing,' Friedman said. It's unclear if the funding is delayed due to personnel challenges or is being held back for more substantive reasons. By April, the Trump administration had fired nearly half the workforce at ACF. Trump has threatened to eliminate Head Start (although officials recently walked that back) and the so-called 'skinny' budget he released on May 2 would eliminate preschool development grants that help states improve early childhood education and the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, which helps low-income parents afford child care while going to college. The Trump administration has withheld other federal funding that Congress appropriated and he legally has to disburse. In April, Congressional Democrats released a tracker that found at least $430 billion had yet to go out the door to a wide variety of programs, from Head Start to USAID. But the CCDBG funding wasn't included in that sum. On top of the delayed block grants, state child care agencies have also been subjected to Elon Musk's DOGE effort dubbed 'Defend the Spend' without any warning and little explanation. Now, when an agency wants to draw down federal funds from the payment system — normally a 'routine and regular process,' Friedman said, and one in which they're typically reimbursed for dollars they already spent — they receive an email directing them to take a new step in which they have to justify why they need the money. In an email received by a state agency director on April 17 and shared with Adams, the sender wrote, 'We are requesting additional clarification regarding this payment. An ideal payment justification includes a description of the award and what you plan to do with the funds.' It then directs the recipient to click on a long URL to do so. The email ends with simply, 'God Bless America.' Adams noted that agency directors told her the emails 'looked spammy and they don't come from a known email address.' Some states have had to justify their spending as many as three times before getting it. The process has now led to delays. 'What they typically would get in two to four business days is taking five to 10 business days,' Adams said. An ACF spokesperson said in a response to a request for comment, 'While some states have been asked for additional clarification prior to their CCDF drawdowns being approved, no states have been denied the ability to draw down CCDF funds as the result of the Defend the Spend review. In addition, the CCDF program is being phased out of the Defend the Spend review, so CCDF grant recipients will no longer be asked for a justification to draw down CCDF funds.' In Ohio, the delay caused a scary hiccup in April, said Tamara Lunan, director of care economy organizing at the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. The week of April 14, providers who typically receive subsidy payments from the state on Tuesdays didn't receive anything. Then those with Saturday payments didn't get them either. Although the state technically has a 10-day window to send payments out, 'usually the only thing that throws it off is if there was some type of error in the billing or a holiday,' Lunan explained. When Lunan, who was hearing directly from providers about the missing payments, asked the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY) what happened, she said she was told 'that they got DOGE'd,' and were made to give an extra explanation for the money. But in a later meeting, the state changed its tune slightly: According to meeting notes, the department said it was due to a 'system glitch at the federal level.' The payments went out on April 22, which falls within the 10-day window, but some providers had to wait a week longer than usual to get paid. It took a quick toll: Some had to lay off staff because they couldn't make payroll, while others paid staff late, Lunan said. Jodi Norton, DCY's chief communications officer, noted that the department hasn't strayed outside the allotted time frame, including the week of April 14. 'DCY continues to work with federal partners when additional justification is needed and thus far has been successful in maintaining the 10-day window for payments,' she said. Lunan said the payments have now resumed as normal, but if more delays crop up in the future it could leave some providers to not just lose staff but go out of business entirely. 'Providers are really scared about this,' she added. States already go through a rigorous process to justify their spending long before they draw down money. Every three years they have to submit a lengthy state plan to the federal government, as required by law, that describes their child care programs and how they will follow relevant rules. Those plans, which are publicly available, are then carefully reviewed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; it's only after they're approved that states can get any money. After that, states are monitored to make sure they are following federal rules, and they must track their spending and report it back to the agency to make sure they follow all the requirements. They also undergo annual financial audits. 'There are many pieces put in place by Congress to ensure that federal funds are being spent as intended and as required,' Friedman said. It is 'already quite extensive.' The new 'Defend the Spend' approach 'is not an efficient process for ensuring good stewardship of federal funds,' she added. 'This new process does not create new information, but it does create burden and uncertainty for state agencies.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Indiana's new child care laws take small bites out of the larger issue
Children play with crafts at the home daycare run by Janna Rodriguez, who has spent more than a decade in child care. (Photo provided by Janna Rodriguez) For the more than 850,000 Indiana children who are infants through 9 years old, only 763 licensed child care centers exist to take care of them when their parents cannot. Because of this, a CNBC study ranked Indiana almost at the bottom for quality of life, with the worst access to child care in the country. At the beginning of the 2025 legislative session, Indiana Senate Democrats prioritized child care in their agenda, writing that they hoped to fully fund the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), a child care subsidy for low-income families. But with the session ending April 24, their goal did not come to fruition in the supermajority Republican General Assembly. A 2024 study by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce found that over half of Hoosier parents miss work or class because they cannot find child care. Absenteeism and employee turnover caused by this struggle creates an estimated $3.05 billion in losses for Hoosier employers each year. Vanessa Green Sinders, president and CEO of the Indiana Chamber, told in January that child care desserts like Indiana deter potential workers from coming to the state. 'We are such a great state to do business in, and we have so much economic development going on, … but that enthusiasm and that economic development is going to take more workforce,' Sinders said. The Indiana General Assembly did not allot funding in the state budget to give Hoosiers universal, affordable child care through the CCDF, On My Way Pre-K or any other program. Instead, lawmakers wrote piecemeal legislation that addressed small parts of the larger problem. — House Bill 1253 was signed into law by Gov. Mike Braun on May 1. During a House meeting late in the legislative session, which ended April 24, bill author Rep. Dave Heine, R-Fort Wayne, said the Senate amended the bill to no longer require children who receive child care at a school to be a child of an employee. The Senate also changed the bill to allow multi-site child care centers, like a YMCA, to be able to operate under one license. 'It really will make it easier for them to expand but also, importantly, maintain the ability of the state to, you know, inspect and hold accountable those individual sites without jeopardizing the functioning of the entire enterprise,' Sam Snideman, vice president of government relations for United Way of Central Indiana, told The most important Senate amendment, in Heine's opinion, was the addition of language that allows in-home child care centers to continue operation as class two structures as long as they are licensed in that category before July 1. 'This is very important language that was added because right now, we have 43 child care facilities providing child care to approximately 800 children that could be at risk of closing down if we did not add this language,' Heine said in the House meeting. — Senate Bill 463, also signed by Braun May 1, would give a tax credit to employers who offer near or onsite child care to their employees. Snideman said adding this option would make employers who opt into the tax credit more competitive in Indiana's job market because employees with kids might choose to work there for child care. The new law will also expand the Micro-Facility Pilot Program, a project that allows existing child care centers to open small, non-residential ones that serve three to 30 children. Sinders said the Indiana Chamber supported SB 463 and HB 1253 because they attempt to make child care more affordable and accessible in Indiana. — House Bill 1248, signed into law April 10, sets aside CCDF funds for foster families who receive last-minute placements. 'We don't want to disadvantage those folks who are doing, you know, really important work or, you know, quite honestly disrupt the care for kids who are already facing tremendous challenges.' Snideman said. — House Bill 1102, another child care bill that reached the governor's desk, receiving his signature April 3, will allow schools to enter contracts with religiously affiliated, nonprofit pre-K sites that offer child care. Snideman said this will create more potential providers for Hoosier families. Snideman believes the reason Indiana has not invested fully in CDDF and other government-funded child care initiatives is because the issue is so broad. But both he and Sinders believe there's room for optimism. 'I think about it from a positive perspective,' Sinders said. 'The legislature is willing to continue to work on this issue and continue to try to make progress. … Every bite at the apple helps get you to the solution.' Snideman is even more confident about the possibility of universal child care in Indiana's future. 'We are committed to expanding opportunities for Hoosiers in this space,' he said, 'which means we will be committed to this long, incremental process of us getting to a place where eventually, you know, every family in our state who wants and needs to send their kids to pre-K or to child care will have that opportunity. This piece is from as part of the Statehouse Reporting Project, a collaborative effort by collegiate journalism programs operating in statehouses across the country.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Spending on child care would grow Indiana's economy
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation report showed that insufficient child care capacity costs Indiana over $4.2 billion annually in lost business productivity and foregone income tax revenue from household employment interruptions. (Getty Images) Indiana lawmakers face difficult choices as they iron out the final details of the next biennial spending plan. With revenue growth forecasted to be minimal, the General Assembly is balancing myriad pressures – leading to debates about property taxes, universal school choice, public health funding and Medicaid. But in all these debates about numbers, our leaders must not lose sight of the thousands of Hoosier kids and families who are waiting for access to child care through the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). By investing in these families – as Gov. Mike Braun has advocated in his budget – we'll generate a massive economic return for our state and the working families who reside here. Indiana loses billions each year by failing to provide comprehensive early childhood education investments. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation report showed that insufficient child care capacity costs Indiana over $4.2 billion annually in lost business productivity and foregone income tax revenue from household employment interruptions. Early childhood education is one of the best investments a state can make, as national reports show between a $4 and $9 return on every dollar invested in such programs. Nearly a third of Hoosiers have experienced changes to their employment status due to lack of child care access, including reductions in hours, turning down promotions or new positions, and losing their jobs or leaving the workforce altogether. And since an announcement from the Family and Social Services Administration last December, more than 10,000 low-income kids are currently waiting for a voucher through CCDF. Report: state loses out on $4.2B annually due to child care shortage What else is at risk to Hoosiers if we don't fund child care? Thousands more children are at risk of not having their CCDF vouchers renewed if the state fails to adequately fund the program in the next biennium. Former Gov. Eric Holcomb's administration took many steps to increase access to the program, including expanding eligibility for low-income families and child care workers, but these updates often relied on one-time federal funding that has now been spent. If we fail to fund these families who currently rely on the CCDF vouchers, they will likely lose access to care. That could imperil the financial viability of hundreds of child care providers if families lose their ability to pay for care, further damaging Indiana's already limited child care capacity, according to a recent analysis by Early Learning Indiana. Closures of providers would also impact families who do not rely on CCDF, as providers would struggle to maintain staff ratios and group sizes without enough enrolled students. A lack of funding in one area of the system creates instability in other parts, and instability hurts Hoosier families and businesses alike. Braun's budget proposal contained a tremendous amount of support for early learning, including over $369 million for CCDF, nearly doubling funding for the state's On My Way Pre-K program, and the creation of a local child care assistance program to support local efforts to increase child care seats. It also included $600,000 annually to support pre-K services for blind and low-vision kids. These are the kinds of proposals that would help deliver on the governor's commitments to equip the next generation of Hoosiers through education and improve quality of life and economic opportunity for Hoosier families. Ambitious plans and proposals have been and will continue to be floated, and questions about how to pay for it all will continue until a final budget is passed. No doubt there are many worthy and important demands for state funding. As the General Assembly moves forward, it's key for lawmakers to recognize how vital child care is to Indiana's economic prosperity and household productivity. Now, more than ever, Hoosier families need the state's support. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Vigo County schools add new pre-K programs as enrollment begins April 1
The Vigo County School Corp. is adding pre-K programs for 3- and 4-year-olds and two new locations for the 2025-26 school year. Enrollment for pre-K begins April 1. "We are super excited as we begin this new enrollment period that we have additional programs to offer," said Teresa Stuckey, VCSC director of elementary education. The district's pre-K programs are Paths to Quality Level 3. "We know that the early years of a child's life are very critical in their learning and we want to offer those programs that will give them the best chance for success," Stuckey said. The district is offering six new pre-school classes, three for 3-year-olds and three for 4-year-olds. The new locations are Fayette Elementary and Sarah Scott Middle School. The district will offer a class for 3-year-olds and a class for 4-year-olds at Fayette Elementary. At Sarah Scott Middle School, it will offer two 4-year-old classes and a 3-year-old class. Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis. "It's really important to get on that right away," Stuckey said. Full day pre-K is $21 per day and is weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; it follows the VCSC calendar. Half-day pre-K is from 8 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. or noon to 2:40 p.m. and follows the VCSC calendar; the cost is $10.50 per day. Many families will qualify for CCDF, or the Child Care and Development Fund for 3-year-olds, or On My Way pre-K vouchers for 4-year-olds to pay their tuition. According to Stuckey, families in Title 1 districts who apply, but do not qualify for CCDF or On My Way pre-K, may qualify for a Title 1 waiver. Children must turn age 3 or 4 by Aug. 1. New student enrollment also opens April 1 for students in kindergarten through grade 12. "We really are looking for those kindergarten parents to get enrolled by no later than April 30," Stuckey said. That will ensure that as the schools plan their parent visits and send out communication, parents of new kindergarten student will receive those communications. For more information about early learning programs, visit
