Child care is a hot topic in this year’s presidential election. It was the subject of a question in the vice presidential debate earlier in the month.

It’s an issue that hits close to home, too.   

Child care in northeastern Wisconsin is expensive, it’s hard to find, and at the same time, child care workers receive low compensation.  

Local families can expect to pay between $9,000 and $15,000 a year for one infant to attend a child care center, median cost data from late 2023 shows. Waitlists are common, with staffing shortages making care even harder to secure.  

That’s not to mention program closures. Sally Van Rens, director of Green Bay’s Kidz in Motion Child Care Center, said that in her area, multiple local child cares close each month.   

Ultimately, child care affordability and access issues threaten to take parents out of the workforce, a report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum said.   

And it stands to get worse, child care providers warn. But, they say, Wisconsin legislators can help.  

We asked northeastern Wisconsin child care providers, as well as other early learning experts, what the Legislature can do to help with the state’s child care issues. The answers varied, but there were many throughlines.  

We also posed this question to candidates in contested legislative races across northeastern Wisconsin.  

The one thing most agreed on? It’s going to take more than one solution to clean up Wisconsin’s child care mess. 

Child care providers say public investment is needed to prevent industry collapse

The Child Care Counts program routinely distributes federal pandemic era funds directly to Wisconsin’s regulated child care providers. Some providers told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin the funds kept their business open during the pandemic. It also helped many increase wages, hire more staff, weather inflation and make other program improvements without having to pass the full cost onto families. 

But Child Care Counts is set to end in June 2025 when the federal pandemic relief funds propping it up will run out. Many in the early learning industry are calling for Wisconsin to invest state dollars to continue the program, or a program like it.  

Without continued investment, the already fractured child care system stands to collapse, said Julie Stoffel, owner and administrator of Cradle to Crayons Learning Center in Kimberly.  

Programs would have to largely increase their prices just to maintain staffs’ current wages, which are notoriously low compared to other fields, she said. Without better pay, turnover will worsen, so more classrooms, if not entire programs, will close from staffing shortages. And if care gets so expensive that parents can’t pay, programs could also close from low enrollment, she warned.  

“People need to wake up and smell the coffee,” Stoffel said. “You talk about a pandemic, we’re going to see a pandemic with child care closures if we don’t invest.”  

Ultimately, closures mean children suffer, too, said Taylor Vande Vyver, a Kimberly mom whose two young children attend Cradle to Crayons. If the center closed, her husband would likely have to leave his job to care for the children. 

“I feel like my kids are better set up for success by being around other kids and learning from someone who knows the ins and outs of birth to 5,” Vande Vyver said. “At the end of the day, child care is for the kids — it’s so they have a quality upbringing, a quality education and a quality diet.”   

The state Capitol saw a flurry of child care proposals last session on both sides of the aisle. Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, said that sometimes in the midst of these discussions, what’s best for children gets lost.  

She said this isn’t the case with public investment, as it allows child care businesses to continue providing quality care.  

“At a minimum, we need to stabilize care by having state investment into it as a public good,” said Wisconsin Early Childhood Association Executive Director Ruth Schmidt. “Once we do that, then you can move into talking about other models.”  

For a while, disagreements in the state’s Legislature positioned Child Care Counts to end in January, but Gov. Tony Evers prolonged its life with unused federal pandemic relief funds from other areas.  

There’s a seat at the table for employers to help with child care

It’s often said that addressing child care issues requires a three-legged stool: help from families, government and employers. 

The exact role employers should play, though, is up for discussion.  

Rep. David Armstrong, R-Rice Lake, and Sen. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, both running for reelection, spearheaded two bills last session to incentivize businesses to help their employees with child care struggles. Both drew support from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.  

One of the bills was signed into law, establishing a new credit under the business development tax credit program for up to 15% of investments made in establishing a child care program for their employees beginning in the 2024 tax year.  

The other, which never made it to Evers’ desk, aimed to create state tax credits for employers who help their workers access and afford child care. 

Not all businesses may be in a position to take such leaps, though, so such initiatives don’t help all families, Stoffel said. She said one thing that may be more achievable is to allow flexible work schedules.  

While employers can help, they alone cannot save the day, Schmidt said, referencing figures from a recent report by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It found that if the providers surveyed could operate at full capacity — many cannot because of staffing shortages — they could serve a total of 33,000 more children. To fill those slots, the state would need roughly 4,000 more early childhood educators, Schmidt said.  

And that doesn’t even consider all of the children in Wisconsin needing care.  

“The numbers are so big you can hardly conceive what the shortage is of teachers for child care is right now, and you’re not going to get that fixed by independent, individual businesses without state government being there to help out,” Schmidt said. 

Finding more ways to support the child care workforce

Because of their tight budgets, child care programs often find it difficult to offer their employees benefits. Candy Hall, executive director of Kimberly-based Child Care Resource and Referral, said that in order to incentivize potential workers, child care centers often give them free or reduced priced child care.  

But doing so diminishes their revenue.  

That’s why Van Rens and Hall suggest Wisconsin take a note from states like Kentucky, where child care workers are eligible for their state’s child care subsidy program, regardless of their household income.  

Such policy would help Wisconsin child care businesses to recruit and retain workers, therefore allowing them to serve more children. At the same time, it wouldn’t take as big of a dent out of child care businesses’ budgets, Hall said.  

Expanding child care options

Wisconsin has two main types of licensed family child care programs. Group child care is typically center-based. Licensed family child care programs are usually operated in a provider’s home and can care for fewer children than group centers, specifically between four and eight children depending on their ages.  

Rep. Joy Goeben, R-Hobart, and Sen. Joan Ballweg, R-Markesan — both are running for reelection — introduced a bill last session that would have created a licensed large family child care provider category, which would allow up to 12 children with two providers. The exact number of children these programs could serve would also depend on the ages of the children enrolled. 

The bill authors said this could boost the state’s child care capacity. 

Hall said that because neighboring states can do it (Minnesota has a similar “group family child care” designation), Wisconsin can find a way to make it work too.  

With some adjustments and more consideration, large family child cares could be especially valuable to rural areas, most of which are considered child care deserts and often rely on family providers, Schmidt said. That’s why, even though the bill didn’t make it to the governor’s desk, Schmidt said she’d support the new designation if more research shows it can be done safely.  

But Schmidt and Nicole Leitermann, who runs Impressions Family Child Care out of her Kimberly home, said that without bigger changes, the new designation won’t make a difference. If family child care providers cannot pay themselves a decent wage, Leitermann asks: How could they pay another person well? They also couldn’t offer benefits.  

“This does not solve our state’s problem in child care,” Leitermann said. “We need the state to invest in child care, just as they do for 4K and kindergarten through grade 12.”  

What candidates are saying

Here’s what candidates in contested legislative races across northeastern Wisconsin say the Legislature can do to help child care providers and families with the high price of care:  

SENATE DISTRICT 2

• Kelly Peterson, Democrat: Peterson said the Legislature can use funds from the state’s record surplus to help.  
•  Eric Wimberger, Republican: Wimberger declined to participate in this questionnaire.  

SENATE DISTRICT 18

• Kristin Alfheim, Democrat: Alfheim said the Legislature should focus on increasing access to affordable child care options to help families and small businesses that are struggling to find staff.  
• Anthony Phillips, Republican: Phillips said he does not support government spending that “just (throws) money at the problem” without tackling the root causes. Phillips said the child care industry needs an adequate workforce so it can expand, from which point he said market forces will decrease costs. He also said Wisconsin can consider enhanced tax credits, subsidies for low-income families or direct per-pupil payments to providers.  

SENATE DISTRICT 30

• Jim Rafter, Republican: Rafter said the Legislature can craft policy to address the field’s workforce challenges by incentivizing people to go into the child care profession. He said there’s opportunity to forge partnerships to have child care within Wisconsinites’ work environments, and for schools to provide child care programs.  
• Jamie Wall, Democrat: Wall’s website says he supports the Child Care Counts program. He stressed that child care helps the economy, as it makes it easier for people to gain and maintain paid employment.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 1

• Joel Kitchens, Republican, incumbent: Kitchens supports a multifaceted approach to this issue that is keeping people out of the workforce. This includes incentivizing businesses to get involved in solutions and expanding tax credits, especially for low-income families, he said. He said there would be a lot of resistance to “direct payments.”  
• Renee Paplham, Democrat: Paplham said the state needs to use its historic surplus to fund the Child Care Counts program. She said last session’s expansion of the state’s Child and Dependent Care Expenses Tax Credit was a “good start,” but that the Legislature needs to work together to find more sustainable solutions.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 2

• Alicia Saunders, Democrat: Saunders said, if elected, she will work with others in the Legislature to come up with a plan to address the high price of care, as well as provide child care workers with a sustainable and living wage.  
• Shae Sortwell, Republican, incumbent: Sortwell said it’s important to make it easier for in-home child care businesses to operate. He discussed changing some slot regulations, and allowing centers to count teen employees toward the number of staff who can supervise children. This, he said, could increase the number of slots available.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 3

• Jason Schmitz, Democrat: Schmitz sees child care as a workforce issue. He said Wisconsin Shares, a subsidy that helps Wisconsin families pay for child care, currently does not offer enough assistance. He said there also needs to be more supports for families who do not qualify for Shares, and there needs to be a system to financially help child care facilities. 
• Ron Tusler, Republican, incumbent: Tusler hopes to re-visit an idea he was considering last session that he calls “the Antigo model.” Previously in the Langlade County community, businesses paid a certain amount per month for slots at a child care program, ensuring their employees priority access to care and a discount. This gave the child care program an additional revenue stream, allowing them to pay their employees more. He is wary of giving large government subsidies to child care providers, stating he does not want to create an industry that heavily relies on those subsidies.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 4

• Jane Benson, Democrat: Benson considers child care as an economic issue. She said Wisconsin faces a “moral decision” when it comes to child care: As the federal funds that have propped it up the last couple of years wane, will Wisconsin direct state funds and support families?  
• David Steffen, Republican, incumbent: Last session, Steffen helped introduce a bill that sought to expand Wisconsin’s Child and Dependent Care Expenses Credit. It was eventually signed into law. He said he does not support Child Care Counts.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 5

• Joy Goeben, Republican, incumbent: Goeben, a former child care provider, said Wisconsin needs to add more child care spaces and reduce costs. Last session, she introduced several bills related to child care, including one that supports having 4-year-old kindergarten programs within child care centers to increase their profits. If reelected, she plans to revise some of these bills, she said.  
• Greg Sampson, Democrat: Sampson said Wisconsin’s working families are diverse, and therefore child care solutions should be, too. If elected, Sampson said he would build off existing child care supports, and would consider state tax credits as a solution.

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 6

• Elijah Behnke, Republican: Behnke said the government should not be raising Wisconsin residents’ children. As a parent, he knows child care is expensive, and said incentivizing child care programs to open will improve competitiveness. He mentioned converting existing infrastructure, such as empty former school buildings, into child care centers.  
• Shirley Hinze, Democrat: Hinze supports providing funding to encourage people to open child care centers. More child care businesses could yield competitive prices, she said.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 52

• Chad Cooke, Republican: Cooke said Wisconsin needs to encourage people to enter, and stay in, the child care industry, and the state’s surplus could fund this. This will increase child care slots, and opening more facilities would create competition and hopefully decrease the price families are charged for care, he said. He said this could be coupled with tax breaks or vouchers for parents, and that there’s no single solution.  
• Lee Snodgrass, Democrat: Snodgrass, who currently represents the 57th district, said child care providers should not have to choose between paying their staff competitive wages and keeping care affordable for parents. The only way to prevent that, she said, is state investment in the industry. She supports continuing Child Care Counts or a similar program and stressed child care is a workforce issue.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 53

• Dean Kaufert, Republican: Kaufert described the state’s child care issues as complex and important. He supports tax incentives for child care facilities to help increase wages, increasing the Child and Dependent Care Expenses Credit for medium- and low-income families and reducing red tape that prevents child care facilities from safely increasing their capacity.  
• Dane Shukoski, Democrat: Shukoski said he will work tirelessly to fund Child Care Counts, stating the program helped providers afford to keep their doors open, therefore keeping workers in Wisconsin.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 54

• Lori Palmeri, Democrat, incumbent: Palmeri said the Legislature could take multiple actions to help with child care issues, the most important being to pass a state budget that helps fund Child Care Counts.  
• Tim Paterson, Republican: Paterson said the cost of child care can be a barrier for people to work. He said he recommends giving families a tax credit for when they use child care, finding a way to subsidize child care businesses such as a grant or scholarship, and providing a tax credit for child care workers to incentivize working in the industry. 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 55

• Nate Gustafson, Republican, incumbent: Gustafson said there is a lot of red tape from the government when it comes to child care. Referencing proposed legislation from last session, he suggested revisiting child-to-staff ratios within group child care centers, adding a large family child care designation and adjusting the state’s requirements to be an assistant child care teacher. To help parents with costs, he wants to change taxes so they have more money for child care.  
• Kyle Kehoe, Democrat: Kehoe said there are multiple approaches to addressing the state’s child care issues, from revising training opportunities within child care facilities to expanding early education programming within schools. He also mentioned needing to address the wage issues within the field and said there’s not enough child care providers.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 56

• Dave Murphy, Republican, incumbent: Murphy said the government has invented large programs in the past, and he does not “want child care to become a new entitlement program.” Instead, he supports giving people tax incentives so they can afford child care, and therefore can work.  
• Emily Tseffos, Democrat: Tseffos said child care is infrastructure. She said the state and employers need to be involved in coming up with child care solutions. She wants to see the state support the industry via Child Care Counts. 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 88

• Benjamin Franklin, Republican: Franklin said he feels part of the reason why child care is so expensive is because there’s a shortage of child care businesses compared to the number of children who need care. He said making child care positions more attractive can help drive costs down.  
• Christy Welch, Democrat: Welch said the state can provide tax incentives or breaks to families with children in child care. She said Wisconsin could also provide subsidies directly to child care programs so that they can pay their staff better wages, which will help them recruit the staff needed to operate at full capacity, she said. 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 89

• Patrick Buckley, Republican: Buckley said he believes companies can help come up with innovative child care solutions. He said the state needs to address child care benefit cliffs, describing this problem as being when a family works more, they lose access to their child care benefits. 
• Ryan Spaude, Democrat: Spaude supports a fully funded Child Care Counts program and making quality child care more affordable for families. He added this can help programs recruit and retain quality employees. He said the budget surplus can help do this.  

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 90

• Jessica Henderson, Republican: Henderson did not respond to interview requests.  
• Amaad Rivera Wagner, Democrat: Rivera Wagner supports Child Care Counts. He said there needs to be policy tax incentives and more child care options. Referencing the latter, Rivera Wagner said he helped lead the effort for multicultural child care options in Green Bay. Helping providers get regulated helps build wealth in traditionally marginalized communities, he said.  

Reporters Duke Behnke, Kelli Arseneau, Jeff Bollier, Benita Mathew, Rashad Alexander, Jesse Lin and Nadia Scharf contributed to this report.

Election 2024 is a big one for child care in Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin voters will soon decide whether to give the Legislature more power to choose how federal funding is spent. Some warn the decision could have consequences for the child care industry.   

Currently, state statutes allow the governor to accept and allocate federal funds that the state receives in certain circumstances, while other cases require legislative approval of some sort. The Aug. 13 primary ballot will carry two referendum questions that ask whether Wisconsin’s state Constitution should be amended to shift such power away from the governor.    

The questions stem from Gov. Tony Evers having sole discretion over how to spend more than $3.7 billion of the $5.7 billion the state received in federal pandemic relief funding. The proposed amendments are the latest in a series of Republican lawmakers’ attempts to change the way future federal funds are allocated. The amendments, they say, will ensure no one person will have too much power over how federal funds are spent.

Some are raising concerns that the proposed amendments would instead concentrate too much control over federal funds in the Legislature. Brown County Democratic Party Chair Christy Welch, who is running for Wisconsin’s 88th Assembly District, called the amendments a “GOP power grab” at a press conference that urged people to vote “no” on the referendum questions.

But amendment authors note that that the same rules would be in place no matter what party controls the Legislature.

“I often hear from residents that ‘you need to work together in Madison.’ Well, that is exactly the goal of the referendum questions,” said Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Racine, who co-authored the amendments. “This is not a partisan issue, but a matter of good governance. It’s working together, not exclusively with one individual (deciding).”

Why would the amendments affect child care?

There are unanswered questions about the amendments — namely, the processes by which the Legislature would allocate the federal funds in question — that make it difficult to pinpoint the effects the amendments would have.  

What’s not in question is that the amendments would affect how the governor could use federal funding for child care, said Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, which published an analysis of the ballot questions. 

Within the past few years, much of the support that Wisconsin has directed to child care has been via federal funding — specifically using pandemic relief funds. 

How have federal funds been allocated to child care recently, and how would this have been different under the proposed changes?

Federal pandemic relief funds used for child care were funneled to Wisconsin via two main pathways.

The first was through existing federal block grants, which have more flexible requirements and can be used for broader purposes than most other federal grants. The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance must approve the allocation and spending of these funds.

The second method was through discretionary funding that the governor could direct without legislative approval, a power Evers — or any governor — would no longer have should the proposed amendments go through.  

Child Care Counts, which directs stabilization payments to child care providers, is one of the most well-known child care supports born out of the pandemic. Since its inception, it has relied on both pathways, explained Britt Cudaback, communications director for Evers’ office.

The program was set to run out of money by January 2024 as federal pandemic relief waned and Republicans declined to devote state dollars to the cause. That is, until Evers used his statutory power in fall 2023 to allocate $170 million in federal pandemic-related emergency funding to extend its life through June 30, 2025.  

Why are some concerned the proposed amendments would blow back on child care?

Opponents of the amendments argue that requiring the governor to gain legislative approval before allocating federal funds could slow getting help to those who need it.  

This could be particularly critical in the case of crises — such as the pandemic, natural disasters and economic recessions. It could also affect the spending of federal funds in general, not just those related to emergencies.  

Some opponents of the amendments say that, if Evers did not have the authority to funnel $170 million into extending Child Care Counts and the funding were to cease completely, an estimated 2,000 child care programs could have closed.  

Corrine Hendrickson, a New Glarus child care provider and co-founder of the advocacy organization Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed, said the $170 million did not fix all of the industry’s problems and that more investment is needed, but it did keep many programs from closing. It also allowed them to maintain the pay raises they gave with previous rounds of Child Care Counts, she said.

Christina Thor, a Green Bay mom who advocates for what she sees as a family-friendly policy, questions whether the child care industry would see any meaningful help should the referendums pass.  

“It’s giving more power to the Republicans who may not see (child care) as an investment in the workforce,” Thor said. “Historically speaking, and also from recent experience in leading and supporting care bills, especially child care and paid leave, they were not on board.”  

Thor cited the Republican-controlled Legislature’s refusal to put Child Care Counts in the state budget and its quick adjournment of a special session called by Evers that was to be largely about child care issues.

The state’s 2023-25 biennial budget set aside $15 million to help child care providers; Cudaback said the fact that the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee did not release those funds per Evers’ request shows it is “not interested” in funding child care and that it cannot act quickly.  

Republicans favored a different approach to addressing problems in the child care industry, arguing that grants will not solve the underlying issues within the industry. They introduced several proposals they hoped would be more sustainable, including changing regulations, opening more child care slots and creating a loan program. Few of their proposals made it to the governor’s desk, and even fewer were signed.

Republicans did, however, bring about some changes to help families pay for care. During the state budget process, the Legislature allocated millions in federal funding to expand Wisconsin Shares, the state’s child care subsidy program. Republican lawmakers also put forth a bipartisan plan to expand a state tax credit for care expenses, which Evers later signed into law.  

How are amendments’ authors responding to these concerns?

A common argument against the amendments is that requiring the Legislature’s involvement could delay getting federal funds out the door. But, said Wittke, the Racine lawmaker, improvements in transportation and communication mean the Legislature can now gather more quickly than it could back in the 1930s, when the law giving the governor discretion to distribute federal money was enacted.

Involving the Legislature will better serve constituents, Wittke argued.  

“The Legislature is the closest to the people, and it is their responsibility, under the Constitution, to hold the ‘power of the purse,’” Wittke said. “The taxpayers of Wisconsin should have a say in how their tax dollars are spent.”  

Wittke also said that in non-crisis situations in which an influx of relief funding flows into the state, most of the federal funding Wisconsin receives for child care is via federal block grants that require legislative signoff. Wittke said this process of disbursing would remain even if the amendments are approved.  

Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, who co-authored the amendments with Wittke, did not respond to a request for comment.

This story is part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab’s series covering issues important to voters in the region. The lab is a local news collaboration in northeastern Wisconsin made up of six news organizations: the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Appleton Post-Crescent, FoxValley365, The Press Times, Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Watch.

Constitutional amendment questions on Wisconsin’s August ballot could affect child care, providers warn is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.