Hamilton on CCDF funding diversion: ‘Statehouse Republicans cleaning up a crisis they alone created’
Today, Gov. Mike Braun announced he will ask the State Budget Committee to divert $200 million from the General Fund to reopen admissions for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). The CCDF is a critical social service program that provides child care vouchers to over 40,000 low-income working families throughout the state. Due to Statehouse Republican budget priorities, the CCDF had to stop taking new applicants over a year ago.
State Rep. Carey Hamilton (D-Indianapolis), a long-time champion of child care expansion, issued the following statement:
"Considering that the Braun administration previously said CCDF would not expand until 2027, I'm pleased with today’s announcement. This program is far too important for working families to keep Hoosiers shut out for another year. With the current waitlist hovering at nearly 35,000 families, this new funding will leave over 21,000 children on the waitlist. The Braun supermajority-created CCDF waitlist has delivered a pipeline to welfare for low-income working families. It’s incredibly short-sighted and fiscally irresponsible.
"House Democrats have been calling on Braun and Statehouse Republicans to find a way to fund this program since the waitlist was announced. Instead, they sat back as 320 childcare facilities closed their doors. They had plenty of opportunities to work with us to prevent this crisis from snowballing, but they decided to prioritize partisan redistricting, private school vouchers for the wealthiest folks and hand-outs to Big Tech over the needs of our most vulnerable families.
"To be clear, Indiana had a child care access and affordability crisis before the CCDF cuts were implemented - a crisis that was costing our state $4.2 billion in economic activity every year - so this announcement doesn’t even get us back to that already dire position. I'm happy these funds are being released, but, as with the gas tax announcement last week, this is a prime example of Statehouse Republicans trying to clean up a crisis they alone created."