{"id":30059,"date":"2021-04-21T09:46:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T15:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=30059"},"modified":"2021-04-21T12:17:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T18:17:17","slug":"expanded-child-care-assistance-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=30059","title":{"rendered":"Expanded child care assistance advances"},"content":{"rendered":"

More Nebraskans would be eligible for subsidized child care assistance under a bill advanced from general file April 20.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Wendy DeBoer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB485, introduced by Bennington Sen. Wendy DeBoer, would increase the income eligibility limit of the Child Care Subsidy program from 130 percent of the federal poverty level to 185 percent. The bill also would increase transitional child care income eligibility from 185 percent of FPL to 200 percent.<\/p>\n

DeBoer said the bill would help families still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and lessen the \u201ccliff effect\u201d that occurs when a pay raise causes an individual receiving subsidized child care to lose that benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cost [of child care] is tremendous. It\u2019s a very big disincentive to work,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cOur economy will not thrive without workers and our workers cannot work without child care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s expanded eligibility would be paid for from existing federal Child Care and Development Block Grant funds.<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas supported the bill, saying affordable child care is critical for families that need two sources of income.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany working families are not in a position where we can voluntarily choose to have a parent leave the workplace to stay home with the kids,\u201d he said. \u201cNebraska has an opportunity to make sure that we\u2019re getting back in competition with states like Colorado and Kansas, both of which have adopted the 185-percent threshold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also in support was Gothenburg Sen. Matt Williams. Nebraska businesses struggle to find available workers, he said, in large part because lower-wage workers cannot afford child care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing with [LB]485 is really creating additional workforce for our businesses across the state,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil opposed the bill. Children are better off when raised by their parents, he said, and the bill would cause more parents to put their children in day care.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime together is good for the mental health of both children and parents and benefits society,\u201d Murman said. \u201cThis is not to say that children are not valued in day care, but no one can totally replace a loving and caring father and mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard also opposed the bill. Future lawmakers would find it difficult to take away benefits once federal funding runs out, he said.<\/p>\n

A Health and Human Services Committee amendment would end expanded eligibility for both programs after the 2023-24 fiscal year. The proposal also requires that the state Department of Health and Human Services collaborate with a private nonprofit organization to evaluate the proposed eligibility changes and file a report with the Legislature by Dec. 15, 2023.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers adopted the amendment on a 42-0 vote.<\/p>\n

DeBoer offered an amendment, adopted 40-0, that explicitly would prohibit using state general funds to pay for expanded child care eligibility under the bill.<\/p>\n

Senators then advanced LB485 to select file on a vote of 31-7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More Nebraskans would be eligible for subsidized child care assistance under a bill advanced from general file April 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-30059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-wendy-deboer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/LB485DeBoer4-20-21a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30059"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30065,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30059\/revisions\/30065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}