West Virginia’s Department of Human Services is changing how it reimburses some child care providers, threatening after-school care at centers across the state.
Providers warn that the change will cause centers to lose tens of thousands of dollars per month, triggering layoffs and further pushing the state’s struggling child care industry to the brink.
The department clarified how it reimburses centers for children in after-school care, saying providers can only be paid in full if children attend for at least four hours a day once a month. The change took effect in late September, catching many providers by surprise.
Since 2020, child care providers have been paid based on enrollment, which is the number of children signed up for a program.
Child care provider Melissa Colagrosso panicked when she learned that her center in Oak Hill was about to lose more than $12,000 a month.
“This is just another kick in the gut, because child care in West Virginia has been disappearing,” she said.
Nearly a hundred child care providers have closed in the last year, according to state data. Now, Colagrosso said her center is facing closure within a month.
“We’re down to the wire,” she said. “What do we do? Do we stop accepting school-age children? Do we say stop accepting subsidies? Where are the answers?”
State officials say it was a ‘clarification’
State officials say the change was simply a clarification to align with existing federal regulations, not a new rule.
At a legislative meeting this month, state Department of Human Services Secretary Alex Mayer said the confusion began with a memo about how the state reimburses for children who attend two different centers.
When state officials reviewed the issue, Mayer said the agency realized that some providers weren’t meeting the four-hour rule to qualify for full reimbursement. The rule had been relaxed during the pandemic, when many children were in care all day, and the state was expected to resume enforcing it.
Federal policy under the Child Care and Development Fund program, which is the main source of child care subsidy dollars, requires that states pay providers based on enrollment unless officials can provide a reasonable justification.
Angelica Hightower, a spokesperson for the state Department of Human Services, said the four-hour rule has been reflected in the state’s child care policy manual for many years, and that the department’s goal was to provide clarity and consistency.
She said the majority of providers won’t experience any impacts, and the department held listening sessions to find solutions.
At the listening sessions, providers urged state officials to do away with the hourly requirement and reimburse based on enrollment, regardless of how long a child attends in a month.
Ruth Friedman, former director of the Office of Child Care during the Biden administration, said the federal rule finalized last year was deliberately flexible for parents and providers.
She said she was unaware of other states with similar hourly requirements.
“The state’s hourly requirement policy seems much too rigid for providers or parents and is not the result of any federal requirement,” she said.
Trump administration officials have told state child care agencies that they were reviewing changes to the 2024 federal rule to return flexibility to the states, potentially rolling back Biden-era regulations. And that new regulations would be released once they heard more feedback.
A child care system already stretched thin
West Virginia currently has approximately 1,200 licensed child care providers, but more than 25,000 children still don’t have access to care.
Over the past few years, centers have closed due to rising costs, staffing shortages and funding issues. That’s left parents facing months-long waitlists as centers scramble to stay afloat.
Most of West Virginia’s child care subsidy funding comes from the federal government through the Child Care and Development Fund, which the state administers and supplements with its own limited dollars.
Last year, state lawmakers put about $9 million into child care, as they have for several years. But they didn’t pass any new legislation to further close the state’s child care gap.
For providers already on the brink of closure, any funding changes are detrimental.
Some centers are now considering ending their after-school programs entirely or raising rates for private-pay families to compensate for the funding loss caused by the rule change.
Jennifer Trippett runs the largest child care facility in the state, Cubby’s Child Care Center in Bridgeport. It serves about 450 children and of whom about 150 are in the after-school program.
She said she’ll lose $35,000 a month under the change because about half of those children rely on subsidies.
“I haven’t even looked at my October budget yet, because it just makes me sick,” she said.
She said she was never told that to be paid based on enrollment, a child had to be there for more than four hours. She said the only way to recoup her losses is to raise what she’s charging private pay families.
“The only way that I can increase my income is off the backs of people who pay too much already,” she said.
Erin Beck contributed reporting.