Governor Evers Looking for Ways to Continue Child Care Counts Program

Saturday, July 1st, 2023 -- 12:00 PM

(By Corrinne Hess, Wisconsin Public Radio) Many child care providers and parents were devastated earlier this month when Republicans in the Legislature defunded Child Care Counts, Wisconsin's pandemic-era child care subsidy program. 

According to Corrinne Hess with Wisconsin Public Radio, on Thursday, a series of tweets and a press release from Gov. Tony Evers gave them hope the program could be saved.

"Today, I submitted a formal request to the Joint Finance Committee to use remaining federal relief dollars to support Wisconsin’s early care and education community through the Child Care Counts program," Evers tweeted.

But there is no new money. "It's procedural," said Corrine Hendrickson, owner of Corrine's Little Explorers in New Glarus and a vocal advocate for the industry. "There are zero extra dollars." The remaining federal dollars Evers is talking about will only support Child Care Counts through January 2024.

And then the program, which has increased pay for providers and kept costs more reasonable for parents, will still end without the $340 million Evers requested in the 2023-25 budget.

Child Care Counts started in 2020 and was later expanded through the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. That act included the Child Care Development Block Grant award where money for Child Care Counts was allocated.

To date, the program has distributed more than $378 million to 4,345 providers in Wisconsin who care for 113,000 children. According to an October 2022 survey by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, more than a quarter of child care providers said they would have shut their doors without the Child Care Counts programs.

And a majority surveyed, 60.6 percent, reported they will have to increase tuition when the program expires.

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