Brewer signs bill that preserves child care subsidies

Day-care for thousands of low-income families will continue next week after state lawmakers released federal stimulus money to undo a budget cut that threatened child-care subsidies.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed the budget revision bill Thursday, saying it means "working parents will be able to keep their jobs and their child care without interruption."

Some 10,000 parents had received notices from the Arizona Department of Economic Security over the past two weeks, advising them their child care subsidies would end Monday unless the Legislature acted.

Officials said stimulus money, earmarked for the child care program, was available, but could not be used without legislative action.

"I think the action that the Senate and House took, with the governor's leadership, was incredible, restoring services to 15,000 young children and allowing 10,000 parents to continue to work," said Bruce Liggett with the Arizona Child Care Association. "This is a red-letter day."

Liggett added, "I really want to thank the governor for her incredible leadership on this. It would not have happened without Gov. Jan Brewer."

Liggett said some parents had panicked, wondering what they would do with their children and some might even have considered leaving them home alone.

DES said it was mailing letters Friday to families and care providers to tell them that subsidy cutoffs scheduled Sunday have been canceled, along with higher co-pays scheduled to take effect April 1.

DES said a waiting list for new subsidy applicants will remain in place and that providers still will see a 5 percent decrease in the maximum reimbursement rate.

In signing the budget bill Thursday, Brewer said it's critical that lawmakers continue their efforts to ``update and improve'' the current state budget and approve a ``responsible'' budget for the next fiscal year that doesn't ``simply or grow our state budget crisis.''

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