Governor alludes to possible special session in August as child care issue remains unresolved – WV MetroNews

West Virginia lawmakers just finished one special session, and Gov. Jim Justice is already acknowledging the possibility of another late this summer.

“I think August makes the most sense to me,” Justice said at a Friday news briefing, alluding to additional surplus dollars that lawmakers could allocate. “We surely will probably plan to have another special session to address these huge surpluses that we have at some point in time.

Lawmakers passed 15 bills proposed by the governor during a special session last week. Those included a funding adjustment for the program supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, state dollars to bolster higher education while problems with federal student aid are worked out plus funding for highways maintenance, a new agriculture lab at West Virginia State University, food banks and more.

A major, lingering issue that state officials have not addressed is a concern about child care in West Virginia. Justice, at one point, had suggested the childcare issue would be on the special session that occurred last week.

The issue is simmering as childcare providers close under economic pressure.

Updates to the federal Child Care and Development Fund, the nation’s largest funding stream to help families afford child care, now require that states subsidize based on enrollment rather than attendance. West Virginia needs to set aside $23 million for a child care subsidy program through the Department of Human Services.

Some delegates tried to amend the funding into spending bills last week.

One of those attempts was made by Delegate Amy Summers, R-Taylor, during a House Finance Committee meeting “so that those companies and families that use that childcare may feel confident that their provider may still be there. I would like to restore that confidence to the families and the providers that we’re going to be able to pay that through the entire budget year.”

She continued, “It expires August 31. We could address this in August, but I don’t see any reason to do that when we could take care of it now and relieve a lot of anxiety that these companies are having.”

The proposed amendment did not succeed, in part because other lawmakers worried that it could inadvertently sabotage the main bill. A similar attempt on the House floor fell flat.

Now the matter may be addressed in a few months.

“One of the things we’re looking to do here is to make sure that we are addressing this issue in conformity with applicable federal law and that we’re addressing it in a way that is sustainable long term,” House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said last week on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”

“So if you’re running one of the businesses in West Virginia that we look to to help us provide the services for employers and for employees, for that matter, to care for children in West Virginia, you need to know and you need to have some comfort and certainty that the funding stream that your business model is based upon is stable and long-term viable. So a one-time infusion of capital to carry a program for a a matter of a few months isn’t the way we want to build a business model.”

Hanshaw said West Virginia needs a plan for longer-term stability.

“We’re trying to put that together now, still, in collaboration with the private sector, in collaboration with the executive, in collaboration with the agencies, and with our federal partners to make sure the stream we have in place actually lets the private sector make long-term viable investments here because that’s really what we need.”

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce continues to urge the legislature and governor to address childcare this year, said Brian Dayton, vice president of policy and advocacy.

“Access to – and affordability of – quality childcare continues to be one of the main issues plaguing workforce participation in West Virginia,” Dayton said.

“Additionally, due to the upcoming expiration of federal money this fall, reimbursement of childcare facilities for publicly-supported children is set to revert back to an attendance-based system, rather than the enrollment-based system that has been in place for the past several years. This is likely to cause several childcare facilities to limit availability or close entirely.  Addressing this issue is pro-family, pro-jobs and pro-workforce.”

Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, was one of the lawmakers pushing to move ahead with addressing the child care issue during the most recent special session. Young expressed disappointment that the matter appears to be moving toward consideration a few months from now.

“West Virginia has lost 265 childcare slots in the last month alone because centers have closed,” Young said in a statement distributed by Democrats in the House of Delegates “This is a crisis. We need to take action to fund enrollment-based reimbursement so that additional families don’t lose essential childcare.”