Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan have announced a plan to distribute tens of millions of dollars to child care providers, which have continued to remain open despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
The aid is intended to help providers stay in business, even while attendance has been lower than normal, which has hit their bottom lines hard.
Walz and Flanagan visited separate child care centers in the state Tuesday to announce the proposal and acknowledged that the “availability of child care” is key to supporting workers and businesses.
“Across the state of Minnesota, both family and center providers stepped up to the occasion. They ended being, if not the first, one of the first handful of states to put together a cohesive plan to keep child care centers open. The child care situation was at a crisis point before COVID-19. Margins are incredibly small.” said Walz.
The proposal, a $56.6 million Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) grant program, aims to help support the state’s child care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The grant program would be available to more than 6,000 home providers, and 1,100 center providers.
According to the governor’s office, family providers will receive up to $1,200 per month and licensed centers will receive up to $8,500 per month. It will be scaled based on the number of eligible applicants.
As the governor mentioned earlier, the funding comes at a time when daycares are in crisis, with the Minnesota Child Care Association reporting that most daycares are operating at 40% to 50% capacity compared to pre-pandemic.
How Art Helps Us Rise and Heal in a Crisis