![\"Sen.](\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/SenCavanaughM_inline-200x300.jpg\")
Cavanaugh said federal provisions of the block grant require participating states to reimburse providers for children in the subsidy program based on enrollment in order to continue receiving funding.<\/p>\n
\u201c[LB13] is really [about] creating certainty for the child care industry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A Health and Human Services Committee amendment would require the department to change the reimbursement method by July 1, 2026. Cavanaugh offered an amendment to the committee amendment, adopted 35-11, that instead would push the start date to Aug. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Bennington Sen. Wendy DeBoer spoke in support of LB13 and the amendments. She said the measure would be an important step in supporting workforce development in Nebraska.<\/p>\n
Providers that offer child care through the subsidy program receive reimbursement at 75% of the market rate, she said, and withholding payment for children when they are not in attendance makes it even more difficult to cover the costs of operating a business.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Nebraska] needs people to be able to work and they can\u2019t do that if they don\u2019t have child care,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cWe need to make accepting child care subsidies a little more palatable to [providers\u2019] business plans so that we can have more people working in Nebraska.\u201d<\/p>\n
Syracuse Sen. Bob Hallstrom also spoke in favor, saying parents enrolled in the subsidy program should be offered the same flexibility as parents who pay for their child care independently.<\/p>\n
Speaking in opposition, Omaha Sen. Kathleen Kauth expressed concerns about the state paying for child care services that are not being provided. She said the measure could disincentivize parental responsibility and encourage misuse of the program.<\/p>\n
Kauth said reimbursing providers based on attendance would assist low-income parents while also ensuring that they have \u201cskin in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gering Sen. Brian Hardin also opposed the bill and the amendments, citing uncertainty about the future of federal funding sources under the current administration. For example, he said, the state\u2019s FMAP \u2014 the share of Medicaid costs paid by the federal government \u2014 recently dropped by $445 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FMAP is not the only area where we can and probably will see money go down from the federal government \u2026 and be handed off to the states,\u201d Hardin said.<\/p>\n
Senators voted 40-5 to adopt the committee amendment before advancing LB13 to select file on a 25-14 vote. Twenty-five votes were needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawmakers gave first-round approval March 5 to a bill that seeks to change how child care providers are reimbursed under the state\u2019s Child Care Subsidy program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36724,"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":[248],"class_list":["post-37827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-machaela-cavanaugh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/UpdateBlogPhoto-3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37827","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=37827"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37833,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37827\/revisions\/37833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}