Gov. Evers, DCF Deliver $8.7 Million in First Round of Direct Payments to Over 3,000 Child Care Providers Statewide, Supporting Care of Over 126,000 Wisconsin Kids and Retaining Over 25,000 Child Care Staff

• $66 million to fund a new “Get Kids Ready” initiative, the first-ever entirely state funded child care program in Wisconsin state history, which will support child care providers serving four-year-olds to help prepare Wisconsin’s kids for kindergarten and get an earlier jump start on learning at a critical time in development;
  • The new first-of-its-kind program in Wisconsin is also designed to help ensure the state’s child care industry will receive sustainable, ongoing state investments into the future after Child Care Counts ends. 
  • Kids in the program will be taught by child care providers using a curriculum that meets the Wisconsin model early learning standards.    
• $2 million to Wonderschool designed to help child care providers across the state build capacity to be able to cut child care wait lists and ensure more kids and families have access to affordable child care;  
  • The grant will expand access to high-quality child care in the state, including launching an online software platform that is linked to the department’s website to connect child care providers with child care workers.    
• $2 million intended to help bolster Wisconsin’s Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, which help parents find child care locally and provide training and technical assistance opportunities to child care providers;    
• Over $123 million to increase rates under the Wisconsin Shares Child Care Subsidy Program to help lower out-of-pocket child care costs for working families across the state; and  
  • The investment will raise rates for the Wisconsin Shares program to ensure Wisconsin meets its statutory obligation, designed to ensure families can access 75 percent of child care slots within a given geographical area and lower the cost of child care for parents.    
• $28.5 million for a pilot program to help support expanding capacity across Wisconsin’s child care industry to ensure more families with infants and toddlers can access quality, affordable child care. 
  • The proposal will increase payments to providers caring for infants and toddlers across the state through the Wisconsin Shares program. 
  • Under the plan, providers would receive payments of $200 per month for every infant under 18 months and $100 per month for every toddler between 18 months and 30 months.  
  • The investment will also help ensure more families and kids have access to affordable child care by helping providers accommodate more infants and toddlers under a new temporary pilot program aimed at aligning Wisconsin with peer states like Minnesota, enabling providers to care for seven toddlers between 18 and 30 months of age per staff member.   

Additionally, new changes under the agreement will help expand access to child care for working families by allowing for ‘large family care centers’ that can serve up to 12 kids and standardize the minimum age for assistant child care teachers to 16 years of age while retaining all requirements for assistant teachers.

Gov. Evers also exercised his broad, constitutional veto authority to partially veto aspects of the budget that were outside of the bipartisan budget negotiations. More information about the bipartisan budget signed by Gov. Evers is available here.