Last-minute funding will help keep child-care providers afloat

Just a few months ago, Johnston County was home to 118 child-care homes and centers.

“As of this morning, we are down to 106,” Candy Scott, head of Johnston County’s Partnership for Children, said in an email on July 10.

But the number of closures could be even higher. Before leaving Raleigh this summer, state lawmakers approved $67.5 million to help child-care centers keep their doors open through year’s end. And legislative leaders have said they plan to set aside more dollars in January to carry child-care providers through June 30 of next year.

“Without this stop-gap measure, which only covers four quarters, we had predicted that around 30 facilities would close,” Scott said.

Using federal COVID-relief dollars, the state had been awarding what it called “stabilization and compensation grants” to licensed child-care providers in North Carolina. But those dollars, designed to bring providers through the pandemic, have run out, and while the stop-gap funding will help, it’s less than what providers had been receiving to pay their employees and meet other costs.

“Reduced stabilization and compensation grants will likely lead to more child care closures in the near future,” the N.C. Department of Health of Human Services said in a statement to EdNC, an advocacy group. “The $67.5M provided to NCDHHS is insufficient to fully cover the first two quarters of the fiscal year.”

Scott doesn’t know how much money will come to Johnston. “The state will use a formula based on the number of children served to determine the funding a facility will receive,” she said. “It will go directly to the facility.”

“The aid is for the compensation of child-care staff and will be available to all licensed child-care facilities,” she added.

But again, it’s only temporary, and the fate of those 30 child-care homes and centers hangs in the balance, Scott said. “When those funds run out, we will be back to that prediction,” she said.

She is thankful for the stop-gap money at least. “It could be worse,” Scott said.

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