MO lawmakers call for hearings as delayed child care payments create day care 'disaster'

Missouri lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are calling for emergency interim committees to investigate the state’s monthslong child care subsidy backlog.

Meanwhile, the powerful House Budget Committee has scheduled a hearing in September to question state education officials about the issues plaguing the program.

“I think it is safe to say The Office of Childhood is a massive disaster,” Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican from Shelbina, wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday, referring to the office within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that is responsible for administration of the subsidy.

“… instead of creating more child care,” she wrote, “this office is running day cares out of business.”

Child care providers have been struggling to keep their doors open, and in some cases forced to shutter, due to technical issues with the education department’s disbursal of federal funds.

State education officials have largely blamed a contracted vendor for the monthslong backlogs. The system launched in December after the program shifted from the Department of Social Services to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The subsidy, part of a federal block grant program that is state-administered, helps cover the cost for day care owners serving low-income and foster children. Some day cares rely on the program to pay their staff.

O’Laughlin said due to the “incompetence” of the office, she is requesting that Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden appoint an interim committee to look into the issues.

The technology vendor, along with leadership of the Office of Childhood, parents and child care providers would be asked to testify, she wrote.

The vendor contracted to develop and implement the new system for the subsidy program is World Wide Technology, a large technology services provider headquartered in St. Louis.

In addition to O’Laughlin, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat running for governor, demanded that her chamber’s leadership create an interim committee to look into the issues surrounding the subsidy.

The problems administering the program have “escalated to the point of crisis, with families losing access to care,” Quade wrote in a letter to House Speaker Dean Plocher, “as some facilities have been forced to close, due in large part to the department’s failure to remit the payments owed in a timely manner.”

Quade requested a standalone committee, or alternatively, that the already-planned interim committee designed to review the ongoing fiscal year’s budget expenditures also include this investigation.

The education department has been “less than forthcoming” in communication, she wrote.

“Since members of the House Democratic Caucus are being inundated with pleas for help from desperate families and struggling providers,” Quade wrote, “I’m certain our Republican colleagues are as well.

“If the department is unable or unwilling to provide answers, it is our duty to demand them.”

A day later, Plocher announced the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee will hold a hearing Sept. 10 to “investigate the causes and impacts of delays” in the state issuing child care payments.

A House Budget Committee hearing was already scheduled for Sept. 11 to discuss child care with the education agency.

A spokesperson for the education department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In recent State Board of Education meetings, leadership of the Office of Childhood has said the agency has worked to bring on more vendors to overcome the payment backlog , as well as process new requests.

“We should have addressed it this way three months ago,” Karla Eslinger, who has been commissioner of education since July 1, told the board earlier this month. Eslinger added that she has “no patience when it comes to this. We will get these folks paid. We will take care of these children.”

This story was first published at missouriindependent.com .

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: MO lawmakers call for hearings as delayed child care payments create day care 'disaster'