93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
Missouri’s governor will soon be unveiling a plan for several hundred million dollars in funding increases for daycare, saying that’s a major issue for workers across the state.
Governor Mike Parson made the announcement at Friday’s education roundtable at Mizzou’s NextGen facility.
“That’s one of the biggest hurdles for working families in our state right now, keeping them in the workforce, keeping them in the education community. And we’ve got to be able to help. It’s getting to be a very expensive to be able to do that,” Parson says.
The governor made the announcement before dozens of education leaders and state lawmakers from mid-Missouri.
Federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will pay for the major funding boost for daycares across Missouri. ARPA was signed into law by President Joe Biden (D).
“I think the other thing that we learned from the pandemic and we kind of knew before, is the hundreds of thousands of people that work shift work, the night shifts, the swing shifts of the world. You know, where a lot of things are based on pretty well on those daytime hours, we’ve got to be able to be flexible enough to make sure that they have an opportunity to have daycare facilities,” says Parson.
Governor Parson will unveil specific details at a later date.
The legal counsel and budget analyst for Missouri House Democrats tweeted Friday that the Parson administration’s first requested round of child care funding is $444-million to help child care providers stay open and staffed.
