* A Senate appropriations committee held a hearing on the Illinois Department of Human Services budget this week…

Another proposed increase is for the Child Care Assistance Program.

Parents at 185 percent of the federal poverty line can get child care assistance now. DHS is looking to increase that to 200 percent, which could cost about $30 million more.

Righter said that before putting more money into the program, DHS needs to figure out why there’s $100 million in unused funding for the program with the existing income threshold.

“Going to 200 or 215 [percent of the FPL] is good eye candy,” Righter said, “but if we’re leaving people on the table who have less money than that, nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. I don’t care what party you are, nobody wants that.”

State Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, agreed there needs to be an answer why there’s excess money at the lower threshold.

“I’m supportive of increasing the eligibility, but we have 69 percent of the families that are eligible that are not part of the program,” Villivalam said.

Villivalam used to work for SEIU Healthcare, so he should know the answer to his question.

* Child care advocates have been predicting this would happen ever since Gov. Bruce Rauner started slashing eligibility in 2015. Let’s fire up the Wayback Machine…

Under new Illinois Department of Human Services rules instated July 1, [2015] some parents earning minimum wage in full-time jobs make twice as much as the cutoff.

In fact, 90 percent of parents throughout the state who tried to sign up after July 1 are no longer eligible, according to estimates by lawmakers and advocates. That includes not only families new to the program, but those parents, like Jamison, who had not used the program during summer months and tried to re-enroll only to discover they no longer qualified. […]

The state assistance program was created after the 1996 federal Welfare-to-Work initiative. Prior to July 1, it had served families that earned up to 185 percent of the federal poverty line, which would be $51,634 for a family of five or $29,101 for a single parent and child. Under the new emergency rules enacted by Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration, if a single parent with one child earns more than $7,968 a year, that family is no longer eligible. In all, about 20,000 children who would otherwise be eligible for the Child Care Assistance Program are expected to be without state-subsidized care by the end of the month. More than 160,000 children had care through the program up until the rule change. The new rule does not apply to families already enrolled at the time it took effect.

“Those slots now that child care providers have are sitting open, and they can’t fill them because 90 percent of people who would apply are no longer eligible,’’ says Emily Miller, director of policy and advocacy for Voices for Illinois Children.

Those projections were revised upward to 30,000 kids being deemed ineligible, then revised up again to 40,000. Because of that, a whole lot of providers simply gave up due to lack of work, decimating the provider network.

* From Villivalam’s own union back in October of 2017…

In budget documents released Tuesday, Governor Rauner declared he would cut nearly $60 million for an extension of the Child Care Assistance Program that was both mandated by the federal government and approved by the state legislature. That funding would go to expand CCAP eligibility for working families from six to twelve months, per the federal block grant, and ensure that families have the continuity of care they need.

Currently, Illinois’ CCAP eligibility is re-determined every 6 months, and children can lose access to their care setting, even if they are eligible again a short time after they are removed from the program. This creates a reality where kids churn in and out of child care settings and subsidy payments, leading to instability that impacts their development and school readiness, and adds additional burdens to working parents.

* Also from SEIU Healthcare just eight months ago…

Rauner began his war on child care in the summer of 2015, unilaterally slashing the Child Care Assistance Program by 90%. Time and again, the governor vetoed legislation to restore and expand CCAP eligibility, despite desperate pleas from many parents that his CCAP cuts put them at risk of losing their jobs or having to drop out of school.

After two years, SEIU child care providers and working parents have forced Governor Rauner to fully reverse his child care cuts. However, the damage has been done. Today CCAP serves nearly 40,000 fewer children than before Rauner’s 2015 cuts and has 10,000 fewer child care providers in program.

The task at hand is to convince parents and potential providers that this is now a stable, reliable program. That won’t be a simple matter.

*** UPDATE *** Sen. Villivalam called to say that what he was trying to get across at the hearing was the dire need for public outreach. DHS, he said, isn’t doing much to inform the public. Villivalam has a bill in the hopper, SB1321, which would require DHS to promote the availability of the Child Care Assistance Program. That bill passed the Senate unanimously.