Families may need to wait until after the Maryland General Assembly returns to Annapolis for long-awaited help with child care costs.

Del. Vanessa Atterbeary, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Thursday that despite the disappointment elected officials felt when the state froze its child care scholarship program in May, “the only reassurance we had was that freeze would end in September.”

“It is now October and that freeze has not been lifted. That is not what we hoped for, and it’s certainly not where we want the program to stay,” Atterbeary said. “Ending the freeze is going to be my priority this upcoming legislative session.”

The state assembly reconvenes Jan. 14.

The Maryland Department of Education previously estimated it could reopen the scholarship program to new families in September, when enrollment was expected to fall to a sustainable 40,000 children. But that didn’t happen, and the waitlist has been growing.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.

According to data from the Office of Child Care, nearly 42,000 kids were still on the rolls in September, down from over 45,000 children in August. Enrollment peaked in June at nearly 48,000 kids.

Laura Weeldreyer, executive director of the Maryland Family Network, said numbers typically drop from August to September as kids start kindergarten.

Even when the department starts enrolling new families, it will only backfill spots as kids leave and will prioritize children from the lowest-income families first. In other words: The program would need to fall well below 40,000 scholarship recipients, or receive a lot more money, before parents could enroll their kids freely rather than wait to come off the waitlist.

Under the freeze, parents face limited options for child care and may need to stay home from work. Kids don’t get the early learning or socialization they need. And child care operators can’t collect the tuition checks keeping their doors open and teachers paid.

The Department of Legislative Services laid out the facts for a joint meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Appropriations Committee’s Education and Economic Development Subcommittee on Thursday. According to that presentation, there were 2,706 kids on the scholarship waitlist as of the state education department’s last quarterly report.

Weeldreyer said that number is likely a “gross undercount” of the demand for the scholarships as families have told her nonprofit they’re not bothering to apply during the freeze. Weeldreyer added the last time the state generated a waitlist, families turned to unreliable, low-quality care. By the time that freeze ended in 2018, Weeldreyer said, the yearslong waitlist had 20,000 kids on it.

According to the presentation, there’s a 30% gap between the number of licensed child care spots and the number of kids who need them, partially because the industry hasn’t bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. And child care costs for 2- to 4-year-olds average $14,850 per year, or 16.7% of median family income.

The state has ramped up its support in recent years. Of the nearly $443 million the state allocated to child care this fiscal year, 93.6% — $414.2 million — went to the scholarship program. Meanwhile, it would take $2.6 billion a year to pay for child care for all Maryland kids up to 2 years old.

“Ending the freeze is just a first step,” Atterbeary said. “The progress we have made in the past four years has been about building the state into something bigger. It’s been about building a system where every Maryland family has access to affordable, high-quality child care.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.