SLATER — Iowa’s Child Care Assistance will become permanently available to child care workers regardless of their income level under a law signed Thursday by Gov. Kim Reynolds.
House File 2514 makes the CCA pilot program permanent beginning July 1. Reynolds signed it into law at the Stepping Stones Child Development Center in Slater.
State child care assistance is available to parents who have young children and are unavailable during week days due to their job, schooling, vocational training or other state job-related activities. The program has a gross monthly income limit for most participants below 160% of the federal poverty level. The pilot program established in 2023 extended that assistance to cover families where at least one parent is working at least 32 hours a week in the child care field, regardless of the family’s income.
Reynolds said in the years since the pilot program started, it had become “the single most effective way to reduce staff turnover in child care centers” and recruit new staff members into the child care field.
The governor was joined as she signed the bill by Elizabeth Umland, director of the child care facility; lawmakers who helped move the measure forward and child care workers receiving assistance through the pilot program. Alura Gould, one of the Stepping Stones employees who uses the CCA pilot program to cover child care costs for their own children, said the law will provide more stability for her and other child care workers across the state.
“It allows us and our families to have stable income,” Gould said. “It allows the children we care for to continue to have the same teachers throughout the years that they’re familiar with and comfortable with. I’m extremely grateful for this and I know a lot of other people are, too.”
Reynolds and others at the event said the CCA program was one of multiple steps her administration has taken to address child care affordability and accessibility in Iowa. Umland said their day care facility is also using the state’s Continuum of Care grants to allow parents to more easily access preschool in the community as well, providing transportation to the Ballard School District’s statewide voluntary preschool program.
“We’re the wraparound option when preschool is done,” Umland said. “… The parents just drop them off at daycare in the morning, the school system picks them up, takes them back and forth to preschool, brings them back to daycare, and parents pick them up here at the end of the day. So there’s no more midday transportation for those parents having access to wraparound care now.”
Early Childhood Iowa legislation still pending
Lawmakers sent the governor the proposal to make the CCA pilot program permanent with bipartisan support, but another bill that included this language remains up for discussion at the Legislature. Senate File 2462 and its House companion included language on the CCA pilot program, as well as making other changes to funding for the state’s Early Childhood Iowa program in an effort to draw down more federal funding.
This proposal has been met with pushback from advocates and members of local ECI boards, who oppose the proposal to shift some funding power and oversight from the ECI system to the state Department of Health and Human Services. The measure was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday, making it eligible for debate in the Senate.
The governor said she believes the ECI bill is “in a pretty good place,” but said there are still discussions happening about the proposal. However, she said she supported the intention to move home visitation services funding to HHS oversight, as part of this change is meant to abide by a requirement in the Family First Act that “evidence-based” models be used in order to be eligible for federal funding.
“We’ve been working on it for two years,” Reynolds said. “So again, all of these programs work together, and we want to just make sure that we’re utilizing these dollars again in the most efficient and effective manner. We want to make sure that if there’s dollars available, that I can draw down additional federal dollars, that I’m not leaving any dollars on the table. … We just have to have standards in place. We have to have accountability in place. We need transparency to any of the programs that we’re working on, especially if taxpayer dollars are a part of it, or federal dollars, it should be a requirement.”
Some advocates with the Association of Early Childhood Iowa Area Boards and Advocates said they believed federal funding could still be available if other entities, like local ECI boards, administer the contract, provided certain standards are met.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
