EXCERPT FROM: Dallas Morning News
By Robert T. Garrett
AUSTIN – While some states curtail low-wage workers' subsidies for child care, Texas has avoided cuts, the Texas Workforce Commission said Monday.
An infusion of $215 million in federal stimulus money since July has helped the state offer more child-care assistance, while the slow economy has knocked people out of work and slackened demand for child care, said commission spokeswoman Lisa Givens.
The waiting list for aid was at about 14,000 children last month, down from an average of 33,000 per month in fiscal 2008.
Elsewhere, tight budgets have forced at least nine states to cut access to subsidized child care or the amounts they pay, forcing single parents to miss work and in some case lose their jobs, The New York Times reported Monday.
Some parents, though preferring to work, have signed up for welfare because programs often are designed to help the neediest people first, the newspaper said.
In Dallas County, nearly 17,500 children were in subsidized child care last month, an increase of 18 percent from October, said Laurie Bouillion Larrea, president of Workforce Solutions of Greater Dallas, which administers the program.
Larrea said her agency and its child-care vendor, the nonprofit ChildCareGroup, once had about 2,000 children on a wait list. Now all families that qualify are being served, she said. For a family of three, the income limit is about $34,000.
"But the stimulus money, which has been an incredible advantage, will no longer be around after December," she said. "The question is, will the need wind down at the same time, or as this [stimulus money] levels off in December, will we see the wait list go up again?"