BY: ANNA KAMINSKI
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Kansas’ child care providers view the state’s child care subsidy program as cumbersome and ineffective, according to a new survey, but they also see ways to fix the underused system.
In partnership with Kansas State University, the Hutchinson-based United Methodist Health Ministry Fund highlighted a report Wednesday detailing providers’ perceptions of the state’s child care subsidy program.
Child care providers and administrators across Kansas said that the state’s processes can be a barrier to those seeking assistance due to excessive paperwork, lack of communication and stringent eligibility requirements, the survey found. That’s in addition to inadequate reimbursement rates and delayed payments.
Jennifer Francois, the author of the survey and a K-State professor, said in a news release the goal of the study was to better understand providers and their thoughts on how to improve Kansas’ child care subsidy system to increase participation. Ninety-three Kansas counties were represented in Francois’ survey of nearly 300 child care providers and administrators.
In Kansas, families qualify for the state’s child care subsidy program if they fall into one of four categories: they receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, benefits; they are low income or a foster parent and working; they are pursuing education or training activities; or they are a teen parent completing high school or a GED. The Kansas Department for Children and Families administers the program and loads payments to families on their Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT cards, each month, and the family pays child care providers.
Desiree Streight, the owner of Little Explorers Playschool in Kingman, in south-central Kansas, accepts families using subsidies and said at a Wednesday news conference that families and child care providers are carrying the burden of a flawed system. Seven of the 12 children she cares for are part of families who are receiving child care subsidies, she said.
“Those families are working hard to get by,” Straight said.
Eligibility review takes too long, and families that are already struggling often can’t afford to shoulder the costs of child care or the penalties associated with the state’s subsidy program, she said.
More than 70% of providers identified higher reimbursement rates and direct payments to providers as ways to increase participation in the program, the health ministry fund’s survey found.
“Kansas is one of the few remaining states that pays families subsidies, or the assistance stipend, to then pay the provider, and oftentimes this is inefficient,” said David Jordan, executive director of the health ministry fund, at the news conference.
DCF’s subsidy program is underused. A report based on 2020 data from the Center for Law and Social Policy found that 12% of eligible families are participating. That was lower than the national rate of 14%.
Other states use presumptive eligibility, which allows families to enroll their kids in child care while they undergo the application process for assistance. Kansas has no such thing.
However, Kansas isn’t unique in its child care challenges.
“Every state is struggling in their own way,” said Emily Barnes, education policy advisor for the Topeka child advocacy nonprofit Kansas Action for Children. “Each state is working to increase the effectiveness of their system, and part of it is we have just not had adequate conversation for a really long time.”
As those working in the child care and child advocacy fields look toward the 2025 legislative session, more funding for providers, which could mean dipping into the state’s general fund, and reevaluating work requirements to qualify for child care subsidies could ease barriers.
Quality, affordable child care is important to Kansans. Kansas Speaks, a statewide comprehensive survey from Fort Hays State University’s Docking Institute, found that more than 85% of Kansans believed that “high-quality, affordable infant and toddler child care was extremely or highly important for families in Kansas, regardless of whether or not they had young children.”
The same survey found that nearly 80% of Kansans surveyed either strongly agree or somewhat agree that access to affordable child care strengthens the economy.