Wisconsin Republicans announced new plans to address child care in the state earlier this week, but local experts say they do not go far enough to help you or your local childcare facilities.

Legislators introduced the plans during a public hearing on Wednesday ahead of Governor Tony Evers’ requested special session on the topic scheduled for September 20th. The bills would allow parents to set up a pre-tax child care reimbursement account similar to ones currently used for health care, set up a loan fund for childcare facilities that wish to make upgrades and loosen restrictions on adult staff-to-children ratios and the age of assistant child care providers from 17 to 16.

Karen Corekin-DeLaMer from Northern Door Children’s Center in Sister Bay and United Way Childcare Coordinator Molly Gary both agreed that the childcare reimbursement account bill was a good idea if it was made available to all Wisconsin families. The other bills were met with less enthusiasm, especially when it came to increasing class sizes. Corekin says they would be asking early care and education teachers who are already underpaid to do more work for the same compensation, potentially leading to an increase in staff turnover and a reduction in the quality of care in education. Gary says the loan program for facilities and lowering the age for childcare assistants does little to address the current problems facing childcare in the state.

Both Corekin-DeLaMer and Gary say the continuation of the monthly Child Care Counts funding, which expires early next year, is the best path forward to ensure parents have access to affordable child care in their communities. Evers proposed using $340 million to continue to fund the federal program on a state level in the 2023-2025 budget, but the legislators left it out of their version of the budget.