Some Missouri families left without child care after state subsidies delayed for months
Bare Essentials Child Care on Linwood Boulevard has the capacity to care for 100 children.
But on Wednesday, Sept. 18, there were only 15 kids in the building.
“I’m having to send staff home early because we don’t have any children,” said LaTonya Fisher, the center’s executive director. “It’s taking two or three months to get people approved in the system for child care.”
Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education offers child care subsidies to qualifying low-income families. Across the state, nearly 30,000 children qualify. Once an application is approved, the state is supposed to send subsidy payments directly to facilities like Fisher’s.
But providers across the state have reported late, partial and missing payments over recent months. Several providers said the problem first appeared near the beginning of 2024, when the DESE launched a new online portal.
“They have this new portal system, you check the portal and there’s nothing there,” said another Kansas City day care owner, who asked that her small home day care not be identified out a fear of retaliation from the state. “You’ve just got to wing it and wait. That’s your only option … and you can’t live like that. You sure can’t run a business that way.”
In an emailed response to questions, DESE spokesperson Mallory McGowin acknowledged an ongoing backlog of family and provider applications caused by “system issues” in the transition between the department’s old and new online infrastructure.
“There have been a number of challenges during the transition,” McGowin wrote. “Payments to child care providers (have) been occurring since mid-January, although they may be getting a partial payment instead of full payment if there’s a system issue.”
Without the necessary approval for state subsidies, many low-income parents are being forced to make alternative child care arrangements — in some cases putting their jobs at risk and causing their kids to miss out on educational opportunities and even nutritious meals, providers say.
“They definitely wouldn’t be getting the same nutrition,” Fisher said of the kids who have had to leave her day care due to the state’s subsidy delays. “Their parents are experiencing the high, high (price) increase with groceries and everything else that they can’t afford.”
McGowin couldn’t say for sure how many of the state’s 1,800 subsidy-eligible child care providers have seen delayed, partial or missing payments. But she did estimate that the DESE’s technology fixes will be completed by the end of September, with “payment reviews for corrections” finished by Halloween.
Here’s what to know about the ongoing delays, and what parents can do until they’re resolved.
What’s causing the delay in Missouri’s child care subsidy payments?
The DESE launched its new online portal in December 2023 — and providers have been noticing issues ever since. Payments have been arriving at an especially sluggish rate in recent months, leaving families without subsidy approval as the new school year begins.
Just this past weekend, on Sept. 14, Fisher says she finally received payment for a child’s care that her center provided in January. And she estimates that the department is only now working through family applications made back in June.
“I would like to see them figure out how to hire some more employees that can get the paperwork done expeditiously,” she said. “They don’t have enough bodies to process the applications. They’re short staffed like everybody else.”
Both Kansas City providers interviewed for this article described hourslong wait times when trying to call the DESE for information about pending applications and payments.
“I’ve been on hold two hours, three hours, (and) they really can’t tell you anything,” the home day care owner said.
Fisher said she recently waited on hold for three hours and 49 minutes to speak to the department about a client’s application, only for them to tell her that the applicant had entered and saved all the required information — but hadn’t clicked the “Submit” button.
“You mean to tell me you’re holding this woman’s child care up for three months, and all you had to do was call her, or better yet, hit Submit?” Fisher said. “It’s a mess.”
What can parents and providers do as subsidy delays continue?
McGowin urged parents to take several steps to ensure their applications for subsidies are up to date in the department’s new system. Parents who have never applied before should ensure they meet the state’s qualifications for assistance:
Children must be younger than 13 years old, have special needs, or be receiving protective services.
Parents must need child care so that they can work, look for work, attend job training or attend school.
Parents must be at or below 150% of the federal poverty level.
Parents who have qualified in the past for child care subsidies must claim and connect their accounts to DESE’s new system through the department’s website.
Once a family is approved for a child care subsidy — a process Fisher says could currently take up to several months — parents must go back into their online portals to select or change their child care provider.
Due to state statutes requiring them to meet certain eligibility criteria, both families and providers must reapply every year to qualify for subsidy payments. And this could soon get trickier: McGowin noted that child care subsidy money from federal COVID-19 relief funds is scheduled to expire Monday, Sept, 30.
As approval delays continue, providers said that they are each caring for several children for free — but have had to turn new families away who qualify for subsidies.
“My case worker for the state tells me that if (the) children are not in my portal where I can see them, do not take them because they’re not authorized for care,” Fisher said.
The home day care owner counts herself among the lucky providers in the area — only two of her students receive state child care subsidies, so the delays haven’t impacted her as significantly as larger day cares. But as the new school year begins, she said she has already had to turn away a mother who qualifies for the subsidy due to the state’s ongoing delays.
“Unfortunately, due to not knowing when I will receive payment or if they even have her in the system — because it could be months before she can even be put in the system — I couldn’t afford to do it,” she said. “It’s a bad situation for everybody.”
Has your family been impacted by delays to child care subsidies or other social services in Missouri or Kansas? Tell the author of this piece about your experience by emailing nwallington@kcstar.com.
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