Low-income families in need of subsidies for child care costs in Montgomery County are finding the money in shorter supply and under greater budgetary scrutiny.
Advocates worry that a decline in aid because of budgetary pressures will mean more families choosing unlicensed — and cheaper — child care, or none at all.
Two Montgomery programs offer financial assistance to hundreds of county residents to offset thousands of dollars in private child care costs. Officials say hundreds more likely are eligible, but either are not aware of the programs, or fear signing up because they are illegal immigrants.
A portion of one subsidy program — called Working Parent Assistance — was cut at the beginning of July out of fear that future funds would not be available, according to an analysis of the programs discussed Thursday by the County Council.
Even so, current financial projections for the program anticipate the need for a waiting list by January, the analysis said. “A wait list will restart the cycle that caused many parents to seek options other than licensed quality care,” the analysis said. “We have witnessed that it is very difficult to draw families back into the program.” A more heavily used state-funded program has seen applications shoot up this fall, compared with last year’s numbers. More than 1,200 new family applications came in between July and September, compared with about 1,000 during the same period last year. If that pace continues, “the amount of subsidies generated would be $9.1 million, or $2.2 million more than the amount expended last year,” the analysis said. That growth is happening at the same time as Maryland is attempting to close a two-year, $2 billion budget gap in its $13 billion general fund. But Councilwoman Nancy Navarro said that slicing child care money would have even more costly long-term effects. “We end up paying more when children are unsupervised,” she said. Navarro, a former Montgomery school board member, noted that almost half of the students enrolled in English as a Second or Other Language classes are U.S. citizens. “That tells you that too many are not enrolled in high-quality child care,” she said.
