Gov. Tony Evers, just a month out from his special session call of the Wisconsin State Legislature, continues to urge the Legislature to address the looming child care industry fiscal cliff and pass a comprehensive plan to address the state’s chronic workforce challenges, according to a recent press release. Evers is continuing a statewide tour visiting child care providers, including recent stops in Milwaukee, Appleton, Rhinelander, Eau Claire, Lancaster, Holmen, and Kewaskum, to discuss the importance of the child care industry and the impact its collapse would have on the state’s workforce.
According to a report from The Century Foundation, it is estimated that without the necessary investments to stave off the looming fiscal cliff facing the state’s child care industry, 2,110 child care programs are projected to close, resulting in the loss of over 4,880 child care jobs, leaving more than 87,000 kids in Wisconsin without child care, and potentially causing around half a billion dollars in economic impacts between parents leaving the workforce and reduced employer productivity.
On Aug. 8, Evers announced a special session of the Legislature to occur at 12 p.m. on Sept. 20 and presented his comprehensive workforce plan to use more than $1 billion of the state’s readily available $4 billion budget surplus to prevent a looming collapse of the state’s child care industry, ensuring child care is affordable and accessible for working parents and families; expanding paid family leave; investing in higher education to help educate, train, retain, and recruit talented workers; and supporting targeted solutions to workforce challenges in high-need areas, specifically the state’s healthcare and education workforce sectors.
In his 2023–25 biennial budget proposal, Evers proposed making the Child Care Counts Program permanent with a more than $340 million investment to continue supporting Wisconsin’s early care and education community, as well as the working families who depend on this care to get to work and put food on their tables. However, despite the state’s historic budget surplus, Republicans in the Legislature decided against putting any funding toward Child Care Counts in the state budget, meaning the program is set to end in January 2024.
