Now it’s essential to help those centers stay open and attract staff, he said.
The grants will be available for four categories of use:
- Operating costs, or new costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This can include building maintenance and renovation, sanitizing and protective equipment, accessibility for the disabled, and paying employee wages and benefits.
- Workforce recruitment and retention, including pay and benefits, bonuses or hazard pay, background checks, training and arranging for substitutes.
- Access development, such as expanding or reopening classrooms to serve more children or those with special needs; new equipment; addressing learning gaps and providing for social-emotional needs.
- Mental health support for child care workers and for families.
Detailed information is available at www.occrra.org.
This new round of grants is in addition to $150 million announced in December. About $60 million of that has been distributed.
Dayton-area child care executive Karen Lampe said the one-time funding will help providers keep supporting working families, and give children the best care and education in preparation for future success.
“Throughout the pandemic and still to this day, these early care and education professionals served families and children in their care, often at risk to themselves, and frequently with great financial difficulty,” she said via email. “The funding that will be forthcoming will hopefully help providers to regain stability, hire and retain professional staff, and continue to offer the highest quality of care possible.”
Lampe is president of CWCC Inc., operator of Creative World of Learning, which provides care and education for children up to age 12 at five Dayton-area locations and one in Springfield. She is also a board member and advocacy chair for the Ohio Association of Child Care Providers.
The grants are available for child care centers regulated by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services; family child care type A and B homes; in-home aides; approved day camps, and preschool or school-age programs licensed by the Ohio Department of Education that are approved to provide publicly funded child care.
Ohio has more than 6,000 licensed child care providers, said Matt Damschroder, director of the state Department of Job and Family Services.
The announcement Friday of the additional came at the Columbus Early Learning Centers location on Champion Avenue, one of five such centers in the city.
Gina Ginn, CEO of Columbus Early Learning Centers CEO, gave DeWine a tour while describing the multitude of programs offered there, many of which are funded by grants.
Stabilization grants such as the funding DeWine announced helps child care centers cover gaps caused by the pandemic, but resources remain inadequate and jobs in child care are often low paid and stressful, she said.
“Each day the demand for child care resources is increasing,” Ginn said.
She hopes the last two years have proven to the public that child care is part of critical infrastructure, and needs to be supported with consistent long-term funding, she said.
Ginn introduced Tashauna Hardy, who said two of her three children attend Columbus Early Learning Centers. The center was vital in helping her overcome homelessness and get through a period of medical disability, Hardy said. Now she works there as a teacher, which enabled her to provide for her family throughout the pandemic.
The eligibility threshold for child care subsidies also has increased from 130% to 142% of the federal poverty line, Damschroder said.
In 2021, the poverty line for an Ohio family of three was $21,960, meaning the new income cutoff for a child care subsidy would be $31,403 for a three-person household.
The $800 million in total childcare funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package approved in early 2021.
Lampe said CWCC received grants for operating costs, workforce and child care access from the previous $150 million round of funding. That was of “immeasurable” help in offsetting inflation and rising wage costs, she said.
The Ohio Association of Child Care Providers, along with the state’s Child Care Resource and Referral system, has been helping the state’s providers apply for the grants, Lampe said.
A majority of OACCP members offer publicly funded child care, she said. About half of CWCC’s clients receive subsidized care.
The new, larger grant pool will help child care providers stay in operation and provide high-quality programming, Lampe said.
“Research has shown us over and over how important high-quality child care is, especially for our most at-risk children.,” she said. “We know that the pandemic has disproportionately affected many of these families.”
In March 2021 DeWine — who served in the U.S. House from 1983 to 1991, and the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007 — said he would’ve voted against the stimulus package. It passed Congress without any Republican support.
On Friday, DeWine said he had criticized “some of the programs” in the ARPA, but wasn’t sure he’d criticized child care funding specifically.
As governor, his job is to make the best use of available funding, DeWine said.
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