House proposed budget won’t include help for struggling child care centers despite Democrat push

Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, speaks on the floor in the House Chamber on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. (Perry Bennett | West Virginia Legislative Photography)

Financial help for West Virginia’s struggling child care centers is off the table for now as state lawmakers are grappling with a potential $465 million budget shortfall tied to possible underfunding of educational programming while the state received federal pandemic dollars for education.

Child care was expected to be a bipartisan priority this year in the House, but efforts stalled out — largely because of money — as 26,000 kids are in need of care and daycare centers are struggling to stay open.

Republican leaders also cited West Virginia’s low workforce participation rate — the lowest in the nation — as a reason to help child care centers stay afloat.

On Tuesday, as House members looked to pass their budget bill , Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, asked lawmakers to consider an amendment that would allocate $44 million supplemental appropriation for the Department of Human Services to help pay child care centers that are reimbursed by the state.

“Our child care centers are in desperate need of this money,” she said. “Many of us have said child care is our priority this session, and we have done absolutely nothing so far.”

Young told members her request came days after the federal government mandated that states reimburse child care centers based on the number of low-income children enrolled rather than attendance in an effort to stabilize their funding.

House Finance Committee Chair Del. John Hardy, R-Berkeley, urged rejection of Young’s amendment, explaining that there were too many questions around the multi-million dollar budget gap to make funding child care a priority at this time.

“We’ve very early in the process,” he said.

The House struck down the amendment with a 20-71 vote . Some members of the House’s child care work group voted against the proposal.

While the House postponed action on their budget on Tuesday, they later approved an amended version of the Senate’s budget proposal with changes that include raises for educators and school service personnel as well as further cuts to the state’s social security income taxes.

Lawmakers have already suggested that they’ll return for a special session in May to deal with outstanding budget issues. It’s possible that they could look at appropriating money to child care centers once the financial situation is more clear.

“We have to do this. We may be back here in May, and we can make arrangements … We have done a lot of things this session that I, frankly, am not proud of, but this is the one thing that we can do right now to answer the call of the top priority,” Del. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, told lawmakers. “There’s no need not to. It’s in the surplus.”

Amid the budget unknowns, the House also rejected other amendments aimed at funding a proposed agriculture lab at West Virginia State University, a veterans’ nursing home and needed raises for direct care workers.

Other bills aimed at addressing the state’s child care gap remain parked in the House and Senate.

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