Faced with soaring numbers of requests for child-care assistance, the state will start a waiting list this week for any new families seeking subsidies. No additional families are likely to receive aid until July, when more than 1,000 could be on the list, according to the administrator of the state Child Development Bureau.
State officials and early child-care advocates say the halt in additional subsidies could spell disaster for parents who need help paying for child care, as well as dependable child care so they can work.
"We have no idea if this will be the tipping point for some families, that they'll lose their job, that they'll become eligible for (Financial Assistance to Needy Families)," said Ellen Wheatley, administrator of the Child Development Bureau. "We know child care can be the safeguard between some very vulnerable families and the abyss."
Families who already receive child care scholarships will continue to do so unless they fail to meet deadlines updating their paperwork. If that happened, the state would stop making weekly payments to the family's child-care provider.
The waiting list will not apply to families receiving cash from the Financial Assistance to Needy Families program, certain foster families or families categorized as particularly at risk.
The Child Development Bureau will start the waiting list - a first for the department - as a way to stay on budget in a year when unprecedented numbers of families have sought aid.
The state has seen a 15 percent increase in the number of children receiving scholarships between February 2008 and August 2009, when the rolls increased from 7,294 children to 8,411 children, according to the bureau's figures.
While total enrollment has risen, the most expensive categories of child care - care for infants and full-time care - have seen disproportionate increases. Children up to 18 months accounted for nearly 25 percent of those receiving scholarship in August, up from 10 percent of those enrolled a year and a half earlier.
The cost of part-time care for an infant at a licensed center is calculated by the state to be nearly twice the cost of similar care for a school-age child.
Families receiving subsidies pay a portion of their child-care bills while the state makes up the difference. The amount each family has to pay is calculated on a sliding scale as a percentage of its income.
The 2009 guidelines put the poverty line at $14,570 for a family of two and $22,050 for a family of four.
While the wait list is set to be implemented Thursday, Wheatley said families applying for aid early in the week may not make the cut.
Paperwork from the family and its child-care provider would need to be processed before the deadline for a chance to start receiving a scholarship.
"It's a theoretical possibility," she said. "It would be darn hard to do."
The total budget for child-care scholarships is $30 million annually, with $18 million from the federal government and $12 million in state money, Wheatley said. The scholarship budget has remained level in recent years.
At current scholarship payout rates, the department would spend nearly $6 million over budget for the year. By the time the first children begin coming off the wait list in July, the department expects there could be 1,100 children in line.
The wait would likely have begun in April had the department not received federal stimulus money, Wheatley said.
The delay in state aid will mean more children in substandard care, said Susan Whiting, executive director of the Wolfeboro Area Children's Center.
"Our state right now cannot afford to tell the parents of these children, 'You cannot go to work if you find a job,' " Whiting said. "The alternative is children will be in real shabby care, unmonitored."