Missouri’s Jefferson City (KMIZ)
The executive head of the Nora Stewart Early Learning Center is Cheryl Howard. She is one of thousands of childcare providers across the state who depend on state reimbursements to keep their daycares open.
Howard says that the NSELC, which has been in Columbia for 91 years, is in danger because of a backlog in the state.
“Our enrollment has dropped by half in the last two or three years.” It’s really bad that we haven’t gotten the grants we asked for, Howard said.
Howard was one of many daycare providers who spoke to the Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee on Tuesday. This was because technical problems had kept the state from paying daycare centers for months, which put them at risk of going out of business or putting them at risk of losing their licenses.
Following the fact that the department failed to pay more than 3,000 childcare providers as promised, members of the committee questioned the department of secondary education.
Three members of the Harris family have worked as child care workers for more than 40 years. To keep their daycare center open, they had to sell their car, turn off their home utilities, and take big chunks of their Social Security. They say they are still $60,000 in debt after all of that. They weren’t by themselves.
Latonya Williams, who runs the Bartlett Center for children who have been through trauma, told the committee that most of the kids they help will have nowhere else to go if her business shuts down.
“I have more than 100 kids in my program, and I pay for about 98% of their childcare.” “I hadn’t gotten any money until a week ago,” Williams said at the meeting. “I had $11,000 saved up in the bank.” I had to pay for cleaning supplies for our class with my own money.
This problem was caused by a new data system that was put in place in December and is being blamed by the state. A lot of daycares depend on those payments to pay their staff and stay open. The new data system has also made it harder for people to show up for meetings. Many people who testified at the hearing said they couldn’t get help when they called.
“There won’t be any satisfaction until these providers are paid, and they should be paid with interest.” “After the hearing, Rep. Raychel Proudie (D-Ferguson) told ABC 17 News, “I’m listening to people take out loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars that they’ll have to pay back with interest.ā
These people are the ones whose lights are off but who are still providing services for the children of this state, which is in line with the current administration.” “They were telling these people that they would take care of them.” Someone needs to do what we said we would do for these people. And to be honest, we weren’t doing that.ā
Minority Floor leader Crystal Quade (D-Springfield), who was at the hearing, says the state should send the money right away.
“For the past few weeks, we’ve been told that this is an IT issue.” It all comes down to the fact that they have to recertify these parents and these teachers to make sure that their children are still attending school and doing all of these other things.
“That’s fine, I know there’s a way to make sure the kids know where they are and the bills need to be paid,” Quade said. “However, we already have a lot of providers who are under contract with the state of Missouri.” Parents who are already eligible for these benefits are already approved, and we could send checks to those providers right now to cover these costs for the people who are already approved.
As soon as the state’s new data system went live in December, payouts started to get held up. The problem got worse and worse, making it hard for families to apply for subsidies and provider contracts.
One part of the problem is showing up. The method forces parents to sign up their own children for attendance, which has caused daycares a lot of trouble and harmed payments.
The method is out of date and only works for Android users. DESE says that the method for keeping track of attendance was put in place in 2018āa year before the new data system went live. World Wide Technology, a company based in St. Louis, was hired to run the new system and the subsidy scheme.
Quade said that the problem has many levels and starts at the top.
“I think we need to talk about whether the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should be in charge of our early childhood tax credit program.” “The point that was made today is that many of these families are eligible for more than one service,” Quade said. “It comes back to the fact that we don’t have direct care caseworkers, our call centers are outsourced, and people in charge in our state keep letting state workers go and giving the work to private companies, their friends, or whoever, instead of state workers who are great at their jobs.”
But for many, it’s already too late. DESE said at the hearing that it would start giving out stipends “sometime this week.”
“It’s too late now.” They’re already closed in some places, like the Saint Louis area, where I live and can talk to them. “Some people are already facing bankruptcy,” Proudie said. “These people were told sorry today, but they can’t pay their power bill. Their rent won’t be paid by their gas bill if they rent a place.
There will be a meeting on Wednesday by the budget committee to talk about worries about how much these problems cost and what possible solutions might look like. Quade tells parents who have been affected to tell their story to her office or to an elected figure in their area.
Proudie still wants to know more.
“I want to know what happened to the difference for people who are opening their hearts and centers to take in low-income kids who are struggling from poverty.ā This is because these kids make up most of their center. People told them they would get a 30% difference, which they did. And if they spent the money to get accredited, they would get an extra 20%.
Suddenly, out of the blue, someone on staff decided not the government but someone else would stop doing that, which will hurt centers, Proudie said. “They weren’t ready for it.” They didn’t know it was coming. Which person made the choice? Why did they make that choice? What are they going to do with their money? They’re not going to pay the companies what they said they would.