A state program that helps low-income New Jersey families afford child care is once again open after funding woes forced it to stop enrollments last summer.
The pause in enrollments due to limited funds last summer shook the Garden State’s child care industry, which is heavily reliant on the subsidies.
The program serves 75,000 children, and advocates and state leaders agree that more children need assistance. Questions continue to swirl around the program’s financial future, but Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s new spending proposal is giving hope for stability.
The New Jersey Department of Human Services last month began accepting full applications from priority groups for the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, which reimburses child care providers for enrolling eligible children. Families that participate in the program are still charged co-pays that vary based on their income.
Enrollment is capped at the current level of 75,000 children. No additional slots have been opened, so new children can only be added when other children leave. Because there’s no formal wait list, families have little visibility into how long they might be waiting for answers to their applications.
Meghan Tavormina, the public policy director for the New Jersey Association for the Education of Young Children, called the assistance program vital to New Jersey’s child care industry.
“It is a stable revenue stream that helps providers, both in centers and in homes, offer a stable child care option for families,” Tavormina said. “ When centers lose that stability, it affects both their private pay families and their [Child Care Assistance] families. So it is vital that our child care assistance program remains fully funded and stable as well.”
The assistance program stopped enrolling new families last summer due to limited funds, despite an $80 million funding increase over the previous year. But the department estimated at the time that another $30 million would have been needed to offer support to an additional 2,400 kids and help every family that falls under federal income requirements.
The department announced in December that it would again allow families to register for the chance to apply for the program. Priority groups, like children with special needs and families experiencing homelessness, are being enrolled first.
Expanding the assistance program is a priority for child care advocacy groups. A bill to appropriate $28 million for the rest of this fiscal year to meet the need is pending in the State House. No action has been taken on that bill yet. The same bill had been proposed at the end of the last session, but was not moved while other supplemental spending — including money to support this summer’s World Cup and the construction of a supercomputer for AI research — was approved at the last minute.
“I think that we have a lot of legislators that hear that money is needed, but don’t understand the nuances of child care centers and how they actually work and the need for [the funding],” said Assemblymember Shanique Speight, a Newark Democrat who chairs the Assembly Aging and Human Services Committee. Speight is sponsoring the supplemental spending bill, as well as a number of other child care bills.
Advocates are hopeful for future stability, as Sherrill’s proposed state budget for the next fiscal year includes $582 million for the assistance program. That would be an $18 million boost in funding, which the governor’s office said would allow the state to expand its support for up to 77,500 children based on updated projections — closing the gap in estimated need.
It’s a notable funding increase in a budget marked by cuts.
“This budget proposal tackles the most pressing issues facing New Jersey communities while cutting the structural deficit nearly in half and paving a path to getting our fiscal house in order,” said Maggie Garbarino, a spokesperson for Sherrill. “As a mom of four, Governor Sherrill understands just how critical access to affordable child care is for working parents.”
The months-long budget process is now underway in Trenton. State lawmakers will eventually draft a budget bill, in negotiation with the governor, to vote on before the end of June. It remains unclear if they will prioritize the child care assistance program the same way Sherrill has.
Tavormina said advocacy groups like hers will be pushing lawmakers to deliver the money, emphasizing its larger economic benefits for the state.
“Most people, in our experience, are supportive of what’s best for children and families,” Tavormina said. “Where it gets sticky is how expensive it is to do what’s best for children and families.”
Assemblymember Aura Dunn, a Morris County Republican who frequently joins Speight on child care bills, said she was glad to see Sherrill’s emphasis on the assistance program as well as other child care initiatives. But Dunn cautioned she’s not convinced that legislative leaders in Trenton are ready to focus on these issues.
“I feel like there’s some momentum, but I don’t think it’s reached the point where there’s enough attention from the Legislature,” Dunn said. “We still see it’s the same group of members. I’m just being brutally honest here.”
The assistance program has become a critical revenue source for child care centers, which face an increasingly difficult economic picture. The centers must meet strict staffing levels to ensure children’s safety, and the centers have to be open extended hours to accommodate parents’ work schedules. New Jersey’s recent minimum wage increases have raised staffing costs.
Pre-K expansion across New Jersey has taken revenue away from child care centers, as parents choose to enroll their older kids in school district programs instead. And the general rising costs of utilities, rent and goods are hitting child care operators just as much as everyone else in the Garden State.
Tavormina said child care centers typically operate on thin margins, making it difficult for them to adapt to sudden financial emergencies – like facility repairs – or handle more permanent changes like cost increases.
Speight says she thinks the amount of money the state reimburses child care centers for through the assistance program should be increased.
“The amount that child care centers are receiving for these children is definitely not enough to sustain,” Speight said.
Speight also wants to see changes in how the assistance program is run. She is sponsoring a bill that would require the state’s human services department to create a waiting list for the program and to take proactive steps to inform waiting parents what is happening with their applications. That bill — with Dunn and another Assembly Republican signing on as cosponsors — was advanced by Speight’s committee last month.
“Could you imagine parents having three or four kids, got to take off work to go recertify, or get a last-minute notice that they have to do this or that have to do that? Or possibly just being cut off, and they’re not even aware that they were cut off until the child care center actually let them know,” Speight said. “It’s been a hardship on day cares and it’s a hardship on parents.”
