Enrollment in child care program drops in Missouri

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri had the largest enrollment decline in the country for a federal program that helps working parents pay for child care, according to a report.

The October report by the Center for Law and Social Policy, or CLASP, said the number of Missouri children receiving a federal child care subsidy fell by 12,300 from 2012 through 2013. Thirty other states also saw net losses in the program.

Some officials think a recovering economy is the cause for the decrease, with families earning too much to qualify for the child care discounts.

But some Missouri child advocates say otherwise. They think the state's reorganization of its Family Support Division offices in the Department of Social Services is preventing parents from signing up. They also cite declines in state enrollment in other programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps.

Executive director Jeanette Mott Oxford of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare said it's likely some children are being placed into possible unsafe child care situations without the subsidy.

"We had a woman tell us a story of how she had to leave a child at a neighbor's house because she could not afford child care. She found a bullet hole in the door and became so agitated about leaving her child in a home with a bullet hole in a door that she did leave her job," Mott Oxford said.

State officials declined to comment or offer possible reasons for the decline, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The CLASP study, which relied on federal government figures, said an average of 39,464 children used the subsidies each month in Missouri last year. The state paid out $149 million in state and federal money in child care subsidies in 2013. The subsidies are mostly funded through the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant program in the U.S. Health and Human Services department.

Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com