Wisconsin’s Budget Decision: Child care community or continued chaos?
Once more, Gov. Evers has requested investment for child care in the state budget. Will the third time be the charm? Or will Republicans again block it in the legislature?
The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time NINETEEN-TIME Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.
This guest column is by Corrine Hendrickson, the co-founder of WECAN (Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed) and the owner and operator of Corrine’s Little Explorers Family Child Care in New Glarus, Wis.
Child care is almost impossible to find – yet alone afford.
Regardless of what some Republican elected officials might be telling their constituents in meetings, this is not a new problem. Covid-era “free money” didn’t create this issue, it actually began to solve a crisis that was already there. Pilot programs created with this covid-era funding have worked, proving what has been said going back to the 1970s when the “worthy wage” movement began here in Wisconsin.
In 2019, Gov. Tony Evers, the Department of Children and Families, and child care business owners and educators were all saying the core issue of the child care “crisis” is the inability of programs to charge parents enough to pay the teachers and care providers a competitive wage. The 2020 Department of Children and Families Preschool Development Block Grant application cited that between 2010-2019, more than 6,000 child care programs closed in Wisconsin — with no signs that it would slow down. Nearly 70% of family child care was gone.
In November 2019, then-state senator Jon Erpenbach invited Brooke Legler and I to co-present a documentary called “No Small Matter” in the state capitol. Dozens of elected officials from both parties came and listened to us talk about the crisis and the lack of wages and benefits — using the 2017 Wisconsin Economic Development Association Tabletop Discussions Feedback Report which showed lack of child care as No. 2 barrier for recruiting and retaining their own employees.
An April 2025 survey of more than 3,600 child care owners published recently by the Institute for Research on Poverty paints a stark picture of our future. About 25% of regulated programs are likely to close, and 21% say tuition will increase by at least $21 a week, per child.
Personally, tuition at the child care I run will increase $30 a week to offset that loss of revenue. Those of us in rural areas are projecting closures at higher rates and will have to increase our tuition the most as the revenue from the Child Care Counts program is a higher percentage of our overall revenue.
State Sen. Marklein, the Republican co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee (JFC), has the two of the top three counties for expected closures in his district — Iowa County at 72.7% of 11 regulated programs and Green County at 53.8% of 26. The reason is that rural counties have lower household income and fewer higher-paying careers, so our market rate tuition must be significantly lower to have enough children enrolled to function. To increase average wages through tuition alone from $13.66 to $18.66 an hour, tuition would need to increase $60 to $75 a week per child.
Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN) member and owner of Spots and Stripes in Bloomer, Wisconsin, created this video (see below) to explain the broken funding system.
The survey also shows that the rural counties are looking at the higher percentage of closures. When you start with the lowest number of programs, the impact will be more severe.
Once again, Gov. Evers has requested state investment for child care in the state budget. Will the third time be the charm? Or will Joint Finance Committee Republicans block it yet again? Last time, they did so in a vote at 2:30 a.m.
Advocates are being told that child care is a “top three issue” for the state budget, and that something must be done. Will they give us the respect afforded to all other industries and listen to us?
Because that “something” that must be done is a direct investment to ensure that teachers can care for and educate children from six weeks to 12 years when their parents are working.
The “something” is not big beautiful buildings that sit empty as parents pound on the door to let their children in. It isn’t non-refundable tax credits that provide “relief” once a year, equal to maybe a couple weeks of care. It isn’t employer-sponsored tax credits that not only do not increase revenue for the child care program, but increase the workload for providers through invoicing and tracking payments from multiple parties.
What that “something” should be is a direct investment in wages — wages to get those who care for and educate our youngest and most vulnerable up from ranking 543rd out of 556 occupations in Wisconsin. Seriously, my high school senior earns more per hour in the restaurant industry than I do as a child care provider. That isn’t something I should be ashamed of, but our society should definitely be very ashamed. Because if we don’t make sure the adults caring for and educating our children are able to take care of themselves and their families, they will not come — and they certainly will not stay.
People are already fleeing rural counties for opportunity in urban areas. Volunteer fire and EMS cannot recruit enough people as the communities they serve are being hollowed out due to lack of affordable housing, good paying jobs, and access to child care. That results in greater costs to local property taxpayers. County services like nursing homes, hospitals, police, sheriff, dispatch, etc., are also feeling the crunch of unavailable employees. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression are linked to chronic stress that starts in childhood. Crime, alcohol and drug abuse, or mental health issues all increase when people feel hopeless. It isn't the school-to-prison pipeline, it is the preschool-to-prison pipeline. We spend $2.5 billion state dollars per budget on the penal system, but spend $0 on child care, relying solely on federal dollars and a minimal “match.” We spend $1,268 a day on juvenile detention centers, and that is expected to rise to $2,304 per day in the next budget, but yet, here we are having to fight for about $2.21 a day per child in the state budget to care for and educate our children instead of jailing them.
Wisconsin’s public school funding isn’t fairly allocated around the state, with far too many rural communities relying almost solely on the paltry amount the state allocates, while the more affluent neighboring communities can increase property taxes and then steal their children, and their money, for private vouchers and open enrollment. The supports available for children with special needs are almost non-existent in child care and abysmal in our public school system. That is why child care and public education advocates are coming together this budget season to call for 60% sum sufficient reimbursement for services to children with special needs and $10.5 million additional funding for three-to-seven year olds, specifically to address the needs in child care settings.
Let the JFC know your priorities by attending the JFC hearings in person or submitting a comment. More information here.
In addition, May 12 is the 4th annual Day Without Child Care, organize and/or attend an event!
Remember, without teachers, there aren’t group center classrooms and family child care homes filled with the sounds of joy and children learning. Without child care, our communities will be silenced.
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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer and at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social.
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If you want to learn more, I did a podcast with @Kate Duffy at Motherhood for Good, give it a listen: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5MhfAJbKxs7MVFu3Ul4Pb6?si=sOqALcatSSumI6rlgYEKRA