Missouri hopes to clear up snafus soon in its transition from an old childcare payment system to a new one. The glitches have persisted for several months, with many childcare centers shortchanged thousands of dollars to care for the state’s most vulnerable children.
The tech problems have come at a high cost. Since January, the state has lost 53 childcare providers.
The childcare subsidy payments are for more than 2,000 providers who care for over 22,000 low-income, special needs, and foster children.
Ferguson state Representative Raychel Proudie obtained emails about Office of Childhood Assistant Commissioner Pam Thomas voicing frustration many times to the vendors for not fixing the tech problems by deadline. She read segments of some of the emails during a legislative hearing in September.
Missourinet requested the records from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The vendors are Carahsoft, St. Louis-based World Wide Technology, and MTX Group. In several emails from Thomas to MTX and World Wide Technology staff, Thomas pressed the vendors many times to fix the problems and with greater urgency.
“It’s my understanding that MTX has this data but didn’t have time to load it by 12/21 go live. It’s been over a week since this go live and I don’t understand why these data are not loaded yet? I need to know ASAP the plan and timeline to get these cases into CCDS (Child care Data System) and how MTX will handle cases where there is already another/second record for that child, to ensure that we are not overriding the original data,” she said in a January 2 email.
“I’m very concerned that MTX is not resourced or managed in a way that a successful outcome can be delivered given the crisis that we are in right now with implementing this new system. It is obvious the structure in place today is not working well, and I need to know what is being done to add resources/vendors put on this project, or to regroup to see immediate progress on this project,” Thomas said in a January 16 email.
In an April 1 email from Thomas to MTX and World Wide Technology staff, she cited comments from childcare providers, including one who said its center was owed more than $45,000 in subsidy reimbursements.
“This industry as a whole is on its last leg,” the provider said. “I have devoted my life to this work, and currently feel as if I am captaining a sinking ship. Myself and other providers I know want to keep weathering this storm, it’s what the children of Missouri deserve – but we can’t keep afloat a ship that continues to be beaten to death with cannons.”
Another provider cited by Thomas said, “I feel as we are the test dummies for their trial and error when it comes to change.”
Providers talked about the state’s call center having hold times lasting hours.
“This is causing so much strife in the lives of so many people. Not just us as providers but most importantly for the parents that need us,” the provider said.
In a May 16 email from Philip Hartman, the project manager, he said, “The general feeling is that MTX is not taking the severity of these issues seriously. Again, when providers don’t get paid, it generates legislative calls.”
Those legislative calls triggered two legislative hearings in September. State Education Commissioner Karla Eslinger told the Missouri House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education that she’s sorry for the system’s problems.
“All of us have worked to increase the availability, access to affordable high-quality childcare for all of our children. It’s a very sad time when our efforts to put together a more transparent system to support our current providers and to enhance opportunity for our parents has failed so miserably,” she said.
Assistant Commissioner Kari Monsees told the committee that payments are still being made.
“Last month, we put out $19.7 million worth of subsidy payments,” he said. “Unfortunately, not every provider saw the full amount that they expected to see.”
Wallis Harris, an owner of a St. Joseph daycare in northwest Missouri, expressed frustration to the lawmakers.
“We’ve got money owed from last year that should come to us,” he said. “We’re within a month of having to share our daycare center down. Forty seven years. She’s 72. I’m 75. We’ve taken all retirement money and we’ve put into this.”
Cheryl Howard, with Nora Stewart Learning Center, said the Columbia daycare has been open for more than 83 years.
“If we don’t receive the funding for the children, which is a portion of what we pay to our staff, we cannot hire good staff. If you can’t hire good staff, how can we help the children and families? So, if we do not get our funding, we will close. And then I have families to tell it to. I have teachers to tell it to,” she said.
Eslinger said once the system is up and running, there will be a third-party review to find out what went wrong.
Additional staffing has been brought on to fix the problems and field calls from providers. The fixes required and the staffing boost are expected to cost about $4.8 million in extra state budget costs. During a Missouri House Budget Committee hearing, Rep. Proudie said the state should sue to get out of the contract because of breach of contract.
“When y’all say taxation is theft…this is theft I’m thinking of, that we’re paying them to not perform like we asked them to,” said Proudie. “The only question I have is, why are we still under this contract? We shouldn’t give them another dime. This should have worked in December. I would love to be in a contract where I can half a** what I’m supposed to do and still get millions of dollars.”
Whether additional legislative hearings will be held about the system overhaul is unknown.
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