Newsom Administration to Spend $100m in COVID-19 Funds on Child Care for Essential Sector Workers

This afternoon, the Newsom Administration Department of Finance (DOF) sent two letters to Senate and Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee Chairs notifying the Legislature of the Administration’s intent to provide $100 million in emergency funds approved by the Legislature last month to support child care providers and essential workers. $50 million is proposed to be made available to the California Department of Education (CDE) to allocate to existing state-subsidized child care providers for the support of additional access to early learning and care for essential workers and at-risk populations. These funds are expected to provide up to 20,000 limited-term additional state-subsidized child care slots.

An additional $50 million is proposed to be made available to CDE to provide non-local educational agency child care providers, which remained open or intend to reopen during the COVID-19 emergency, a flat-rate allocation based on capacity as reimbursement for the purchase of various PPE and cleaning supplies and/or labor related to cleaning.

Additional information is available from the Governor’s website here.