This story originally appeared in the Statehouse Spotlight newsletter published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get coverage of the legislative session delivered to your email inbox Monday – Thursday; sign up for the free newsletter at mountainstatespotlight.org/newsletter
Getting more West Virginians into the workforce is “the challenge of our time,” Gov. Patrick Morrisey told lawmakers during his State of the State address last week.
He proposed creating an online job search portal but did not mention child care, which business and labor leaders say is one of the largest barriers to people working.
West Virginia’s child care industry has struggled with closures, low pay and a lack of providers. Last year, lawmakers developed legislation to improve child care but did not pass it.
Now, they are working to reintroduce bills that would permanently change how child care providers are reimbursed and funding subsidies for low-income families.
The state has a large gap between the number of child care slots open at centers and the number of children who need them.
“Child care is essentially the business that takes care of all other businesses,” said Kristy Ritz, executive director of the West Virginia Association for Young Children. “If child care fails, then no one is going to be able to work.”
Lack of child care is one of the most significant barriers to employment, according to a state workforce development plan for the next few years. It is also detrimental to the state’s workforce participation rate, which measures the number of people actively working or seeing work in the workforce.
In 2022, lawmakers passed a tax credit for employers with a child care facility, like Toyota’s manufacturing facility in Buffalo.
At the beginning of last year’s session, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said this only helped the largest employers and that lawmakers wanted to do something for smaller employers too. A child care working group introduced several bills but the House Finance Committee did not send any to the floor for a vote.
“Child care is a real issue for workers and their families,” said Josh Sword, president of the West Virginia AFL-CIO. “We need some real action and we need some real support.”
Bridging the state’s child care gap
There is a sizable gap between the number of children who need child care and the providers available in the state — over 25,000 children under the age of six need child care but don’t have it.
Amy Jo Hutchinson, campaign director for the West Virginia chapter of Moms Rising, said many parents can face years-long waitlists, forcing many to seek out unvetted babysitters online.
“We hear from a lot of folks that they’re just working to pay for child care and it’s an extra level of stress,” she said. “Some parents just have to quit their jobs and stay home.”
Mariah Burnley owns and operates the Ohio Valley Child Learning Center in Wheeling, one of the state’s nearly 1,300 child care providers. The center specializes in care for children from six weeks old to 12 years old.
Burnley said she’s in a network of other providers through the West Virginia Association for Young Children and many of them are staying open while losing money or without a strong stream of income. She said rising costs have forced at least ten centers to close their doors over the past year.
“It’s flabbergasting because we can’t operate in the negative like that,” she said. “My staff has to get paid and that money has to come from somewhere.”
Burnley said employee retention is hurting centers everywhere as workers leave the industry for better pay. In West Virginia, the average hourly wage for child care workers is $11.36 an hour, according to federal labor data.
“Do we decrease our tuition and hope for the best, or do we increase it and lose families?” she said. “It’s a catch-22.”
Several bills died last year as some lawmakers, business leaders pushed for action
To increase the number of child care providers, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has proposed tax incentives for businesses that provide child care, subsidies for families, and loan forgiveness for child care professionals.
“Child care can be as expensive as a mortgage payment, forcing many families to choose between child care and other necessities,” said Kaylin Jorge, communications director of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
Last year, the Chamber pushed for expanding the state’s child care tax credit for businesses that provided child care to employees. However, a bill in the Senate and another in the House never made it to the floor for a vote.
Del. Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam, led the House working group on child care last year. She introduced legislation last year to create a program that would allow the state to supplement one-third of child care costs for low-income families in a three-year pilot period.
The bill was not taken up by the House Finance Committee. An attached fiscal note estimated it would cost the state over $420,000 if 100 children were in the program.
Other states, like Michigan and Kentucky, have a similar tri-share program which requires the state, the employer and the employee to each pay one-third of the costs associated with child care.
Kristy Ritz said she is skeptical of how a tri-share system would address the fundamental issues with child care which stem from a lack of facilities and high costs.
“I see a lot of issues with it,” she said. “My concern is that lawmakers and the public will see it as the only answer to the child care crisis.”
Crouse said she’s working this year on introducing several pieces of legislation to address the child care issues, including codifying a federal mandate that reimburses providers based on child enrollment.
“I don’t want to make moms go back to work, I was a stay-at-home mom and loved it,” she said. “What I want to do is to make it so that those that want to go to work, they can.”
Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, said she is a part of the bipartisan child care working group and is looking for ways to permanently fund state child care subsidies families received through federal funding. A spokesperson for the Department of Human Services said $35 million is needed to fund the program this fiscal year.
Del. Mickey Petitto, R-Harrison, said she didn’t previously see much focus among lawmakers on children’s issues, but she is more hopeful for this session.
“I could not get anyone to even talk to me about daycare until it became a workforce issue,” she said.
Erin Beck contributed reporting.
Reach reporter Tre Spencer at tre@mountainstatespotlight.org
