EXCERPT FROM: The Kansas City Star
By Matt Campbell
Missouri legislation that would cut money for child care would actually end up costing the state money, several area officials said Monday.
The budget bill, which is pending in the Missouri House, would require the state to give $38.7 million back to the federal government.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said the Rev. Sam Mann, executive director of United Inner City Services. “It’s stupid.”
Mann and representatives from several child care agencies in Kansas City on Monday criticized the budget cut under consideration this week.
The bill would slice funds for child care assistance by more than $7 million and would reduce the number of people eligible for the assistance by lowering the threshold from 127 percent of the federal poverty level to 107 percent.
That would require the state to return $38.7 million in federal stimulus money, some of which has already been spent, according to Jeremy LaFaver, director of public policy for Partnership for Children.
Scott Rowson, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Social Services, said the group’s understanding of the situation was accurate.
Children at Operation Breakthrough, a child care center on Troost Avenue, on Monday symbolically posted letters of protest to Missouri legislators as well as an oversized check to the U.S. Treasury, representing money that would be returned.
Operation Breakthrough director Sister Berta Sailer said Missouri was 49th among the states in providing child care assistance to the working poor and seemed intent on becoming 50th.