WISCONSIN — A new Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) survey found that child care providers could be serving 33,000 more children in the state if centers were able to operate at full capacity.

What You Need To Know

  • Child care providers could be serving 33,000 more children in the state if centers were able to operate at full capacity, according to a new DCF report

  • Nearly 60% of providers have “unutilized capacity,” such as closed classrooms

  • Much of this stems from staff shortages due in part to low wages

  • Child Care Counts Program has been helping support centers but funding is set to run out

Nearly 60% of providers have “unutilized capacity,” such as closed classrooms, according to DCF’s Child Care Supply and Demand Survey. Much of that was due to staff shortages.

DCF Secretary Jeff Pertl said he believes some shortages are a “ripple effect” from Child Care Counts payments being cut in half. The program started during the pandemic to keep child care providers afloat and recruit staff. It helped more than 5,000 child care centers stay open.

Gov. Tony Evers had proposed more than $340 million in funding to make the program permanent in his 2023-25 budget proposal, but it was turned down by Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature. That worried many providers across the state, as funding is set to run out in 2025. Leaders are continuing to push for funding.

“Working parents across our state depend on having high-quality, affordable child care so they can get to work and feed their families, but with providers closing their doors and reducing slots due to staffing, affordable child care is becoming harder and harder to find,” said Evers in a release. “This is not sustainable. If we want to address our state’s generational workforce challenges, we must make sure child care centers have the resources they need to keep their doors open, pay their staff fairly, and serve as many kids as possible. It’s as simple as that.”

Lead teachers at Wisconsin child care centers make an average of $13.55 per hour, less than half of the average hourly rate of $28.34 for Wisconsin workers. Officials said this is part of what’s driving people to leave the field and in turn, causing centers to close more classrooms.

The survey showed that around 48,000 children are on waitlists for Wisconsin centers.

Child care costs have also continued to increase in the state, according to the survey. A report put out last year by Forward Analytics showed that the cost of child care for two young children in Wisconsin is more than the cost of sending two students to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

If no funding is approved, it could result in more than 80,000 children losing child care, according a The Century Foundation report.

“The Child Care Counts Program has helped to keep our center in business and fully operational as we were able to retain staff with bonuses and wage increases as well as lure new staff members with sign-on bonuses,” said a Wisconsin child care provider in a release.

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