By Carol Burnett, MLICCI Executive Director
Published in the Clarion Ledger
Parents with young children need child care in order to work. Because child care is expensive, many Mississippi parents need help affording the high cost. The Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) is a federal block grant that provides assistance to parents earning up to 85-percent of the state median income. CCDF is the largest early childhood program in Mississippi and it allows parents to choose the provider that offers care during their work hours. Thus, CCDF makes it possible for more parents of young children to go to work.
Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) is the state agency charged with administering CCDF. In its 2020 annual report, DHS cites the CCDF child care program only serving about 30% of the eligible children. Fortunately, Mississippi has received more than $500 million in additional CCDF child care funds through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) so far more eligible children can be served.
Given the unmet need for child care assistance, the need for more workers to enter Mississippi’s workforce, and the unprecedented influx of federal funds for the child care assistance program, DHS should be working quickly to use these funds to serve more families.
Unfortunately, DHS imposes red tape preventing parents from getting the child care they need, and DHS is resistant to using ARPA funds to serve more children due to concern about sustainability. DHS asserts in public meetings and recently on the PBS News Hour there has been no waiting list for 4 years, and that anyone who needs CCDF child care assistance can receive it.
However, the providers we surveyed report waiting lists of families who need assistance in order to afford child care. In fact, more than half (56%) have waiting lists of parents who need to enroll their children in open slots at the center, but cannot afford to do so without CCDF. They also report parents who cannot go to work without this child care assistance, almost unanimously (92%) wanting DHS to use ARPA funds to serve more children.
Our report also shows huge problems with parents’ efforts to sustain their child care assistance due to the minefield of bureaucracy DHS has in place that obstructs parents’ access to child care assistance. Providers overwhelmingly cite operational barriers imposed by DHS that make it hard for parents to get through the CCDF application process, primarily DHS’ requirement that single parents comply with child support enforcement in order to qualify for CCDF. Eighty-three percent (83%) of providers report the child support requirement prevents the very parents who need child care assistance most: single parents. The majority of providers (62%) report other barriers in the application process that DHS can easily remove.
Most providers (74%) also report significant numbers of eligible parents who lose their child care assistance due to this red tape. If DHS cared about sustainability, they would remove this red tape.
These barriers are not federally required. If DHS wanted this program to work for the parents who need child care assistance and the providers who serve them, they could easily make these changes because they created them.
DHS needs to get out of the way of parents who are trying to go to work and, instead, support their desire to work by extending child care assistance so they can afford to go to work and remain employed.