Minnesota Shutdown Impact

[GretasLittleFriends]

I got the following forwarded to me by my licensor. I figured I would share it here since we have quite a few MN providers here.

Subject: Gov't Shutdown-Child Care Impacts-Story Needed

In preparation for a possible Minnesota state government shutdown, the Minnesota Department of Human Services has contacted families and providers using the Child Care Assistance Program with information about services and payments during a shutdown period. We have posted this information on our website at http://bit.ly/jifqyb.

If you are a parent or child care provider who will be affected by a government shutdown, please contact Chris at [email protected] TODAY (Tuesday) to let Child Care WORKS know what the impact will be on your children, family or child care program. We are collecting stories to include in an affidavit we have been asked to submit to the court currently responding to petitions by Governor Dayton and Attorney General Swanson regarding what services should be maintained during a government shutdown.

Your stories help illustrate potential impacts on the health and safety of Minnesota children should the government shut down on July 1; please be as specific as possible and include your name and email/phone number where we can reach you with any questions. The affidavit is due Wednesday morning, so please send your story to [email protected] today by 4 p.m.

Thank you. We appreciate this extra effort today to communicate that child care is an essential service to Minnesota children and families!

[Sugar Magnolia]

Probably not the place, but....

...I have a political comment here. HOW can a STATE do this to CHILDREN? You know who is the first to suffer when states play politics with budgets? The children of lower income parents, the sick, the old, the handicapped, the jobless. When will this madness stop? The young children of these politicians will not suffer, because they go to pricey private "acadamies" and have no use for state funding! Essentially they are saying: "Hey, I know, instead of raising taxes on the rich or corporations, let's kick the working poor while they are down. Underemployed? Don't care. Raising small children as a single parent? Tough. Trying to go to school to better yourself? Good luck." GRRRR!!! Yes, its a recession and state budgets are tight, but THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!! Shame on you MN!!!!!!

[Blackcat31]

...I have a political comment here. HOW can a STATE do this to CHILDREN? You know who is the first to suffer when states play politics with budgets? The children of lower income parents, the sick, the old, the handicapped, the jobless. When will this madness stop? The young children of these politicians will not suffer, because they go to pricey private "acadamies" and have no use for state funding! Essentially they are saying: "Hey, I know, instead of raising taxes on the rich or corporations, let's kick the working poor while they are down. Underemployed? Don't care. Raising small children as a single parent? Tough. Trying to go to school to better yourself? Good luck." GRRRR!!! Yes, its a recession and state budgets are tight, but THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!! Shame on you MN!!!!!!

My only comments on this subject is that the mis-use of the program by SOME of the parents of these small children is exsctly why we are in this position. Too many people treat welfare as a hand out and NOT a hand up like it should be. I have 75% of my families receiving state aid/assistance for their child care and they are ALL the first to drop off and the last to pick up. This is a time for people to stand up and be responsible and have some accountibility. I do feel bad for those who truely need this program and will undoubtedly suffer great financial hardships but honestly, in all my years of doing child care, I have only run across 1 or 2 of these families.

Our state needs to step up and make families accountible for their use and need of the program. Too many unemployed parents are using child care to job search when in reality they are sitting at home channel surfing instead. Too many loop holes.

When I notified my families of the possiblity of no services, every single one of them said some version of "Well, good thing I don't have a job yet." or "Well atleast, my boyfriend can watch him since he is home all day"!

[Zoe]

My only comments on this subject is that the mis-use of the program by SOME of the parents of these small children is exsctly why we are in this position. Too many people treat welfare as a hand out and NOT a hand up like it should be. I have 75% of my families receiving state aid/assistance for their child care and they are ALL the first to drop off and the last to pick up. This is a time for people to stand up and be responsible and have some accountibility. I do feel bad for those who truely need this program and will undoubtedly suffer great financial hardships but honestly, in all my years of doing child care, I have only run across 1 or 2 of these families.

Our state needs to step up and make families accountible for their use and need of the program. Too many unemployed parents are using child care to job search when in reality they are sitting at home channel surfing instead. Too many loop holes.

When I notified my families of the possiblity of no services, every single one of them said some version of "Well, good thing I don't have a job yet." or "Well atleast, my boyfriend can watch him since he is home all day"!

And it's for THAT reason that I don't take state assisted families. My father owns a financing company for those with poor credit so that they can get furniture or appliances and make monthly payments. He gets burned WAY too much by people and I therefore am very skeptical of those receiving assistance.

I know it doesn't apply to everyone. I've had to be on assistance at one point....because I NEEDED it. But I've yet to run into someone who, like me, appreciates and uses this help to climb out of financial struggles.

I really really hope our state figures this out by next Friday. Too many people I know are losing their jobs, or not getting paid....it sucks.

[jojosmommy]

All politics aside, some people like me are loosing a majority of their income because of this. 4 of my 6 paying kids (1 other is mine) are on assistance. All full time, do the math, thousands in lost income in a month.

I am not going to talk about IF they should be on assistance or not. If you don't agree with the program don't take assistance families.

Some people (including me) are hardworking and still face hardships like this due to unecessary bickering and political nonsense.

[Blackcat31]

All politics aside, some people like me are loosing a majority of their income because of this. 4 of my 6 paying kids (1 other is mine) are on assistance. All full time, do the math, thousands in lost income in a month.

I am not going to talk about IF they should be on assistance or not. If you don't agree with the program don't take assistance families.

Some people (including me) are hardworking and still face hardships like this due to unecessary bickering and political nonsense.

I completely understand what you are saying and feel for you. I am in the same boat with possibly losing a significant amount of income but this stalemate the government is at is NOT unnecessary bickering or political nonsense. It is about where our (everyone MN resident) tax dollars go and how they should be allocated. I personally would like to see more funding given to the schools for extra curricular activies and for elective courses versus food stamps,cash or child care assistance for a family who doesn't hold up their end of the deal and ONLY use it to get on their own two feet. I would rather see it go toward our roads and our state parks as well as for environmental issues. I would like to see rates paid by the CCAP to child care providers raised instead of giving another million to the families receiving the assistance. Providers in our state have not recieved a raise in rates paid out by the state in almost 5 years!!

I would think that balancing a budget for an entire state is rather difficult when the same groups of people keep getting bigger and bigger chunks of the money while everything else falls to the wayside. These same children who have parents on assistance will not have hot lunches, music programs, phy-ed classes or the option of having a computer in their classrooms when they do get to school if we, as a state continue to spend as we have. It is sad that it has come to this and we are facing a possible shut down but in reality, something has to give or there will be no programs at all. Then taking families on assistance will be a moot point because there will be no program.

[jojosmommy]

All I am going to say is that I attended two parades in the last week with my child and 2 of my local area senators attended both parades. Shouldn't they be spending more time trying to balance the budget and less time parading around (literally) schmoozing? Too bad now adays none of what is important to the people is actually considered. What each politician gets from the deal is more on their minds than the people they are supposedly working for.

[Blackcat31]

All I am going to say is that I attended two parades in the last week with my child and 2 of my local area senators attended both parades. Shouldn't they be spending more time trying to balance the budget and less time parading around (literally) schmoozing? Too bad now adays none of what is important to the people is actually considered. What each politician gets from the deal is more on their minds than the people they are supposedly working for.

Sad but true.

[Cat Herder]

My only comments on this subject is that the mis-use of the program by SOME of the parents of these small children is exactly why we are in this position. Too many people treat welfare as a hand out and NOT a hand up like it should be.

This is a time for people to stand up and be responsible and have some accountability. I do feel bad for those who truely need this program and will undoubtedly suffer great financial hardships but honestly, in all my years of doing child care, I have only run across 1 or 2 of these families.

Our state needs to step up and make families accountible for their use and need of the program. Too many unemployed parents are using child care to job search when in reality they are sitting at home channel surfing instead. Too many loop holes.

When I notified my families of the possiblity of no services, every single one of them said some version of "Well, good thing I don't have a job yet." or "Well at least, my boyfriend can watch him since he is home all day"!

I could have written this myself!!! Excellent post!!!

I, too, have run across only two of these families who actually NEEDED assistance in ALL my years...the rest were manipulators of the system. I choose to give BOTH free childcare (2 years each, both with 3 kids, while in State paid school) to prevent them from being victims of the "Disabling" from government handouts.

They eventually both got handouts, anyway, and both are sitting at home with new degrees I help fund and cannot afford to get for myself.

When asked they say "I Cant' afford to get a job because I'll lose my benefits."

Never again.

(I did not correct your post on purpose to be a smartA$$ , Blackcat.. I hit change all on spell check. )

[jen]

All I am going to say is that I attended two parades in the last week with my child and 2 of my local area senators attended both parades. Shouldn't they be spending more time trying to balance the budget and less time parading around (literally) schmoozing? Too bad now adays none of what is important to the people is actually considered. What each politician gets from the deal is more on their minds than the people they are supposedly working for.

I don't believe that the governor had called them back in to session yet...

[jen]

I could have written this myself!!! Excellent post!!!

I, too, have run across only two of these families who actually NEEDED assistance in ALL my years...the rest were manipulators of the system. I choose to give BOTH free childcare (2 years each, both with 3 kids, while in State paid school) to prevent them from being victims of the "Disabling" from government handouts.

They eventually both got handouts, anyway, and both are sitting at home with new degrees I help fund and cannot afford to get for myself.

When asked they say "I Cant' afford to get a job because I'll lose my benefits."

Never again.

(I did not correct your post on purpose to be a smartA$$ , Blackcat.. I hit change all on spell check. )

The system is screwed up....I watched a think on 20/20 (?) recently about a single Mom who was working full time and getting childcare benefits. She got a raise so the State pulled her childcare benefits...her raise cost her about $500 per month and she was facing foreclosure. Sometimes we really do set people up to fail.

[Blackcat31]

(I did not correct your post on purpose to be a smartA$$ , Blackcat.. I hit change all on spell check. )

No worries! I am a bad speller when I am all worked up LOL!!! Psst, I also correct mis-spelled words when I quote other because I just can't help it...I am a victim of involuntary editting....)

The system is screwed up....I watched a think on 20/20 (?) recently about a single Mom who was working full time and getting childcare benefits. She got a raise so the State pulled her childcare benefits...her raise cost her about $500 per month and she was facing foreclosure. Sometimes we really do set people up to fail.

This is unfortunately very sad and very true. So many families are trapped in the system and are never taught a way to get out. It is a lose-lose situation for those that are really trying and a win-win for those that really just make the system a way of life. Like so many things in life, it becomes easiest to do what you've always done. Each generation raises the next and pretty soon it becomes a prison of mis-use, manipulation and sadly comfort and security.

I had a family give their two-weeks notice a few years ago when their co-pay was raised. The reason mom told me they were going to stay home was because they would receive more in food stamps/cash asistance if they just gave the child care costs and had one parent stay home. They paid around $112 per month for 2 full time children and it was being raised to like $143 per month. There was no incentive for them to continue working or to earn a higher education, so they sat back and decided to collect more benefits because...well, because they could. :confused:

[kidkair]

When I needed help when I was just starting out I hated going to the government offices. I felt like they viewed me as scum and didn't want to give me any help. I was asked tons of questions and felt like they thought I was an idiot. It was a degrading experience and I hope to never have to ask for help again. I truly needed help and did get it and I got rid of it as fast as I could too. I can't understand why people would want to go through that over and over again in the same way I don't understand domestic abuse victims.

[Unregistered]

I am the single mother that "welfare" was designed to help...

I am a 30 year old single mother of two. My daughter turned 2 last week, and my son is 10 months. Their father and I split when I was pregnant with our son, and becoming financially independent has been struggle. With the states help, I have climbed my way out of food stamps and into management... continuing to move up, now with an opportunity to manage multiple locations of the company I work for.

I could not, and can not afford to work at all without childcare assistance. I do not know how I am going to handle this situation. I do not have family in town, and their father works full time as well. The cost to have both of my children in daycare is more than I make. But I have to work, for my own sanity. To provide for my children and to contribute to society. It fufills me as an individual and I am good at my job.

I will be devestated if this shutdown pulls me away. As will my employers. Neither myself or my company can afford to lose even a week... And if by chance I can get my mom to travel this far to help me out, then my kids, especially my 2 year old, will miss her friends and teachers so much. They will be confused and it will throw them off entirely.

My life is hard. I am exhausted by 6pm every day, and still have 1.5 hrs of work before my kids are in bed. And another 1.5 after that cleaning up after them. I am happy though. My kids are happy.

I am so grateful for the assistance I have received to date. I pray, hands and knees, that the government does not shutdown. That I can keep working. And that I won't spend my entire savings to do so.

[Michael]

I am a 30 year old single mother of two. My daughter turned 2 last week, and my son is 10 months. Their father and I split when I was pregnant with our son, and becoming financially independent has been struggle. With the states help, I have climbed my way out of food stamps and into management... continuing to move up, now with an opportunity to manage multiple locations of the company I work for.

I could not, and can not afford to work at all without childcare assistance. I do not know how I am going to handle this situation. I do not have family in town, and their father works full time as well. The cost to have both of my children in daycare is more than I make. But I have to work, for my own sanity. To provide for my children and to contribute to society. It fufills me as an individual and I am good at my job.

I will be devestated if this shutdown pulls me away. As will my employers. Neither myself or my company can afford to lose even a week... And if by chance I can get my mom to travel this far to help me out, then my kids, especially my 2 year old, will miss her friends and teachers so much. They will be confused and it will throw them off entirely.

My life is hard. I am exhausted by 6pm every day, and still have 1.5 hrs of work before my kids are in bed. And another 1.5 after that cleaning up after them. I am happy though. My kids are happy.

I am so grateful for the assistance I have received to date. I pray, hands and knees, that the government does not shutdown. That I can keep working. And that I won't spend my entire savings to do so.

Would you write me at [email protected] and put Daycare Assistance in the Subject line of the Email?