KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Missouri officials said Tuesday they have received millions of dollars in federal child care subsidy funds that the Trump administration had withheld for services rendered in December.
Providers across the state should receive the delayed payments, which are usually received and distributed within the first few days of each month, by the end of the week, according to an update the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education, or DESE, provided Tuesday morning.
"More than $20 million in requested funds have been released to DESE-OOC in the past 2 days," the department said in a statement to KSHB 41. "We anticipate child care subsidy providers will receive their requested payments by the end of the week.
DESE’s Office of Childhood said the state had received “all subsidy funds requested from Administration for Children and Families (ACF) that had been delayed due to required additional justification.”
Last week, DESE said that the delayed payments impacted 1,723 child care providers in the state, or 53% of all Show Me State child care providers.
Megan Huffman — who owns Rising Sun Learning Center near West 103rd Street and State Line Road in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as a second unaffected location in Louisburg, Kansas — told KSHB 41 last week that, in addition to the financial hardship caused by the delay, she feared the subsidy-payment spat would push some providers to end their service contracts with Missouri.
Huffman said roughly half of the families at her KCMO location receive subsidies, and the federal government owed her $49,000 for care — including day care, meals, and extra coverage during the holiday break with school out — provided last month.
She said some child care providers may choose to stop contracting for subsidy-assisted care because of the delay’s impacts.
“That really hurts Missouri’s foster families as well as our low-income families, because they already don’t have many options,” Huffman said. “A lot of providers have already jumped ship from subsidies because of things like this.”
RELATED | Delayed federal payment threatens to upend Missouri’s child care system
DESE’s Office of Childhood contracts with child care providers across the state to provide subsidies for children in the foster care system, who are wards of the state, and low-income families, often single-parent families, who qualify for federal child care assistance.
“We sign up to help provide for kiddos that are in foster care in the custody of the state (of Missouri), as well as low-income families who have applied and are under certain income brackets,” Huffman said. “It mainly helps single moms and stuff like that be able to afford child care so that they can go to work.”
The delayed payments forced some Kansas City-area child care providers in Missouri to take out loans to afford the first payroll payments for employees of the new year, my colleague Braden Bates learned.
Payments were delayed amid a probe into fraud related to child care subsidy payments in Minnesota.
The Trump administration announced plans to freeze all funding for federal income-assisted programs in five states with Democratic governors — California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York and Illinois — after fraud was found in Minnesota, but it also held up payments in other states, including Missouri.
Usually, providers submit remittance requests around the first of the month and receive payment within the week, Huffman said.
But in January, the Trump administration didn’t honor reimbursement requests and waited until Jan. 8 to inform Missouri about additional documentation it required before approving payments for services rendered in December. DESE said it provided the federal government that documentation, the nature of which remains unclear, last Friday.
Missouri child care providers were owed $25.7 million, all of which was apparently approved.
“The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Office of Childhood (OOC) is pleased to announce Missouri has received federal child care subsidy funds,” the department said Tuesday.
DESE said providers who have not received payments by Tuesday, Jan. 20, should contact the state.
“We appreciate everyone’s patience during this delay,” DESE said in an email to providers. “Thank you for your understanding as OOC worked diligently with our federal partners to meet this updated requirement.”
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