With funding challenges looming, Mass. child care could be in jeopardy – Boston Globe
By
It is 9:07 a.m., and Joanna Hendrix is stuck between a sleepy baby and two hungry ones. Since her co-teacher quit months ago, Hendrix has been the sole teacher in the infant room at United South End Settlements’ daycare center. Hendrix is about to use her foot to rock the tired baby in a bouncer while feeding the others, but thankfully a colleague swoops in to help on this November morning.
“It is like juggling, every day, all the time,” Hendrix said with a nervous laugh. “It never ends.”
After 18 years in child care, Hendrix knows babies well — what blanket Milo needs, how Celia likes to be fed, which toys J’Lian prefers. But every day feels more difficult than the last, as Hendrix watches colleagues leave for higher-paying jobs elsewhere. The center is strapped for resources at every turn.
Those financial strains are likely to get worse: Pandemic-era federal funding for child care ended in September. Governor Maura Healey and the Legislature provided one-time state funding of $475 million to the industry through the end of the fiscal year in June.
This year, the state separately also budgeted roughly $850 million — mostly from the federal government — to support child care financial assistance through items such as subsidies for low-income families and reimbursements to the providers who serve them.
But providers said the child care industry is so broken that it requires a more permanent funnel of government money that goes directly to providers, such as the Commonwealth Cares for Children grants that came through during COVID…
Bills winding through the State House aim to combat the problems by creating new state funding, expanding subsidies for families, and debuting publicly funded early childhood education.