EXCERPT FROM: Mail Tribune
By Damian Mann
State budget cuts in day-care assistance mean families who recently received public aid from a federal program will continue to qualify for the help, while working families who have not will no longer be eligible. For some, that will mean they'll have to quit their jobs to stay home with the kids.
"It's a hardship," said Gene Evans, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Health Services. "We've heard parents say, 'If I lose this day-care subsidy, I can't afford to work.' "
The families who have received aid through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in the past 24 months still would qualify for the day-care subsidy if they are now working.
Other low-income parents who have been working but haven't received the federal subsidy in more than 24 months would lose their day-care benefits.
DHS has proposed reducing by half a day-care program that serves 11,293 families. The agency would save $17 million in the process as state officials shoot for a 9 percent budget cut.
In Jackson County, the day-care subsidy provides assistance to 725 families, including 1,271 children. In Josephine County, 118 families with 331 children get the benefit.
The state already has received calls and reports from working mothers who have said they would have to quit their low-paying jobs because they can't afford day care without the subsidy. That, in turn, would push them to seek help from government assistance programs.
The day-care subsidy ranges from $25 a month to several hundred dollars with an average benefit of $527.84 a month.
Beginning in October, only those families who have been involved in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program will be eligible for the benefits.
Angela Reynoso, owner of Genevieve's Childcare and Development Center in Medford, said a mother with four children told her Wednesday she would have to quit her job because she couldn't afford day care.
Reynoso, who takes care of 15 children at her facility, estimated she will lose about half her clients after the state makes its cutbacks.
"It puts me in a weird position because the kids are like family," she said.
Reynoso said she would have to make cuts in her own business, but doesn't think she will have close shop as some other child-care facilities in Jackson County have suggested.
State Rep. Dennis Richardson, R-Central Point, said the cutbacks are the result of too few constraints on spending by the state.
"This is just the first of many examples where we're going to see the benefits that are provided can no longer be afforded," he said.
Richardson, who sits on the House Ways and Means Health and Human Services Committee, said he's been warning for years that the state has been extending benefits without consideration for downturns in the economy.
"The inevitable day of reckoning is here," he said.
During hearings in the last legislative session, Richardson said, one mother testified that she received $1,800 a month at her job, but it cost $3,000 a month for childcare.
"I couldn't believe it when she said she needed the subsidy so she could be self-sufficient," he said.
Richardson said he didn't know all the details of the woman's situation or why it cost her so much for child care.