Gov. Roy Cooper releases stopgap child care funding, says industry remains in state of “crisis”

Child care advocates rallied in Raleigh over the summer to support daycare centers. (Photo: Greg Childress)

Gov. Roy Cooper announced Wednesday that the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services will release $67.5 million in stopgap funding this week to help stabilize North Carolina’s early childhood education and child care centers.

The money is the last scheduled payment of Child Care Stabilization Grants, which were initiated in 2021 to keep child care centers open and to improve early childhood teacher pay.

“North Carolina relies on high-quality early childhood education and child care to support children’s healthy development and learning, allow parents to work and keep businesses running,” Cooper said in a press release. “But these programs are now in crisis and we need the legislature to step up and make real investments before more child care centers close, more early childhood educators quit and programs become unaffordable for too many parents.”

The federal government poured $1.3 billion into North Carolina during the pandemic to help keep child care facilities open. The grants, which were funded by the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan, ran out in June.

State child care advocates asked lawmakers for a $300 million emergency allocation to keep centers going. The Republican-led General Assembly provided the $67.5 million to continue the grants through Dec. 31.

Cooper noted that the grants currently support 3,763 early childhood education and child care facilities across the state. A recent statewide survey found that nearly a third of such centers are in danger of closing when funding runs out. Without additional money, childcare providers say they will lose teachers, have difficulty hiring and be forced to increase fees.

North Carolina has lost 116 childcare centers over the past year, according to Cooper’s press release.

Emma Biggs, a Charlotte daycare provider and child care advocate, joined hundreds of providers and other advoxates in Raleigh over the summer to demand lawmakers to replace the federal subsidy with state money. “Our teachers need a thriving wage, not a living wage, so they can go home and not have to work two or three jobs to take care of their families after taking care of everyone else’s,” Biggs told N.C. Newsline in June.

Biggs also shared that many teachers in private daycares work without health insurance or a retirement plan.

“I’ve been in this field for 27 years and I have neither one,” Biggs said. “Independent centers, we can’t afford to pay for retirement and health insurance.”