Childcare facilities face budget constraints following state funding cuts

BALTIMORE — It's a tiny amount of Maryland's massive budget, just $5 million, but for this year it's not in the budget.

Putting the Maryland Child Care Credential Program on pause.

"They suspended the program, which impacted over 20,000 people participating," said Christina Peusch, executive director of the Maryland State Child Care Association.

The program's stoppage is blamed on budget constraints by the Department of Education.

The credential program helps childcare professionals with training and provides them bonuses for improving themselves.

A big help in a job that doesn't always pay the best which can make it tough to make people want to join the workforce and stay.

"We are still lagging behind and not recovering from COVID in this workforce. We can't automate, this is not something we can do curbside. You have to be here," said Peusch.

Nikeiha Wallace runs downtown Baltimore Child Care.

For some of the people working there, they found out their training wasn't being covered after they already completed the classes.

"We had some people that took training and then were sending in their reimbursements like they wanted to be reimbursed and then it was cut off too," said Wallace.

Wallace's program sees kids from all different households, with different financial needs.

The lack of funding for the credential program could lead to them increasing tuition.

"The need in this area, we're very diverse, we have some families that are on the Maryland Child Care Scholarship. So, they can't afford for us to up our tuition monthly," said Wallace.

Up in Bel Air, Colleen Donahue runs a small preschool.

Even though she only has seven workers it's a major impact.

"So now we have to come up with educational expenses out of our own budget and budgets are already struggling right now because the cost of living has increased so it's just another obstacle," said Donahue.

Donahue is hopeful they don't have to increase tuition.

"Our priority here is to keep our preschool affordable to our parents so we'll try to be creative and figure out where else we can save," said Donahue.

The schools are hopeful this funding will be restored in the next budget.

We reached out to the Maryland Department of Education for an interview or comment on this story and have not heard back.