Missouri Childcare Centers to Weigh Their Options Amid State Funding Uncertainty

This article was originally published in Missouri Business Alert.

Nicci Rexroat, owner of A Place To Grow preschool, has been in the child care business for 19 years, and she’s beginning to believe that most of Missouri has become a child care desert.

“You know, families call me every day looking for places, and we are booked up in Jefferson City until August 2027,” Rexroat said.

Rexroat opened A Place To Grow at Holts Summit in 2015 before adding two locations in New Bloomfield and Jefferson City in 2023. Since its initial opening, it has received state grants that help families pay tuition.

Over time, she said she has seen the number of families needing additional help increase exponentially.

“I think one of the big problems is that the economy is a little tighter,” Rexroat said. “Everything is more expensive.”

Last month, the Missouri House proposed a $51.5 million cut to the child care subsidy program that would have specifically targeted enhancement services that help low-income children, including those in foster care, receive quality care. The cut also would have made it harder for accredited child care centers to pay staff who meet higher education requirements.

But the Missouri Senate restored that funding in its version of the budget bills passed Wednesday. This could still be amended by the House or vetoed by Gov. Mike Kehoe before the budget is signed into law.

The child care subsidy program provides assistance to more than 27,000 families, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. To receive assistance, families must have children under 13, be below 150% of the federal poverty level and need child care to work. Once a family is deemed eligible by the Children’s Bureau, they are matched with an approved grant provider. Grant funds are then distributed to that provider by the state based on a fixed rate.

“It’s kind of like a voucher for families to get child care,” said Casey Hanson, deputy director of Kids Win Missouri.

The number of families eligible for the program has increased 19% since January 2025, according to DESE, which led the Children’s Bureau to begin implementing a waitlist for the program in March.

Hanson said the increase is most likely due to current economic conditions and possibly an increase in the number of children enrolled in child care since the Covid-19 pandemic.

She said she hopes that when people look at the number of families on the waiting list, they will remember why the program exists.

“The grant is a program for working families, families who are in school, families who are in job training and our foster and adoptive families,” Hanson said. “These are families who need childcare services to be able to take care of their children and be able to thrive on their own as a family. »

If the reduction had gone into effect, Rexroat feared it would have to limit the number of services it provides.

“We will have to reduce the number of children in foster care that we can provide services to, which is not good for anyone and is not why we are in early childhood,” Rexroat said.

Rexroat has been in the process of achieving accreditation at all three of its centers over the past two years. She promised her staff a pay increase if they met accreditation requirements.

The uncertainty surrounding possible budget cuts makes her doubt her ability to follow through.

“I worry about staff retention if I fail to keep this promise,” Rexroat said.

Seeds of Faith Preschool in Clinton has been accredited for three years. Owner Amber Hansen didn’t expect her center wouldn’t be hit as hard by the cuts, but she worried about how other providers would be affected later.

“We may not see it in the next three months, but I mean, a lot of child care centers are hurting right now across the state,” Hansen said. “You have to think about the cost of food, you have to think about keeping the lights on. We have bills too.”

Hanson, of Kids Win Missouri, said even with the state Senate restoring funding, there was still a long way to go. However, she believes the problem is better understood.

“We’re still dealing with a child care crisis, we still have a waitlist, I think everyone understands that there needs to be deeper discussions about how we can try to balance maximizing access for families, reducing that waitlist, but also making sure that we’re supporting our providers,” Hanson said.

This story originally appeared in Missouri Business Alert, a digital newsroom covering Missouri business and economics.