Missouri’s four candidates for governor are talking about the state’s childcare crisis.
Due to a payment system upgrade, Missouri has been behind in paying childcare providers the money they are owed for taking care of the state’s most vulnerable children. During a debate hosted by the Missouri Press Association, Democrat Crystal Quade said that Missouri is “drastically failing” at childcare.
“The state of Missouri, right now, is not even paying its childcare providers’ bills on time,” said Quade. “We have lost 53 childcare providers in the last year because the state of Missouri is not meeting its basic promises of what we are paying them for our subsidies in our foster kids.”
During the candidate forum, she said that she wants to make sure that the government does what it promised.
“I’ve been meeting with childcare providers all across this state, having conversations asking how much are you owed – hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Quade added. “These people are taking out personal loans to be able to keep their business afloat and we talk about supporting small businesses and we can’t even meet these basic promises that we’re doing.”
Republican candidate for governor, Mike Kehoe, said that Missouri needs to improve access to childcare and think outside the box. He used a personal example of seeing his mom struggle to choose between staying home to care for her child or go to work and leave the child at home alone.
“The good news about the childcare crisis, it’s nonpartisan,” said Kehoe. “This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue, this is a Missouri issue. We have $1.4 billion, with a B, of labor sitting at home annually in the state of Missouri because those working folks want to go to work and can’t get childcare.”
Kehoe added that he wants to make sure that these centers are safe, but also for Missouri to promote the ability for childcare centers to open.
“We have to give options to businesses that want to build childcare centers within their business like they have here in Springfield at Cox Health, like they have in Kansas City at Burns and McDonnell Engineering.”
Green Party candidate Paul Lehmann promoted universal healthcare so that money can be used to provide childcare and support the childcare givers.
Libertarian Bill Slantz said that the state has no business in childcare “whatsoever,” and said that the reason both parents are unable to stay home is because of the exponential cost of living.
The candidates are running in Missouri’s general election on November 5.
Copyright © 2024 · Missourinet