A pilot program is helping West Virginia workers with child care, with employers paying some costs

Heather Clark has juggled working full-time at an insurance agency and caring for her young daughter for the past five years.

“When you have a kid at home, you can’t answer the phones, and you can’t have that personal interaction,” said Clark, who often works from home. “And my job requires that.”

In July, Clark became one of the first of 28 parents to join West Virginia’s new pilot program that subsidizes child care by allowing employers and the state to cover some of the costs.

But the program is small compared to the size of West Virginia’s child care crisis, and it won’t survive if lawmakers don’t step up with more money.

Clark is now saving $80 a week on three days of child care for her five-year-old daughter, Gabby.

“It just helps ease the gap between making bills and getting to save,” she said.

Clark isn’t alone.

Finding affordable child care is one of the biggest hurdles for West Virginia families finding and keeping jobs, business leaders say.

West Virginia suffers from a lack of providers, low pay for child care workers and insufficient funding subsidies to help low-income families. More than 25,000 West Virginia children don’t have care because providers don’t have enough slots.

And lawmakers haven’t done much to help families or child care providers, other than implementing new tax credits for employers and families.

The program is helping parents like Clark afford child care, but it’s only available in eight counties and is expected to end in August 2026 — or sooner, if the number of parents participating exceeds the limited budget.

That leaves lawmakers with a choice: expand the program or let it fizzle out and go back to the drawing board for West Virginia’s child care crisis.

A new model for child care

The new approach asks employers to pay a portion of an employee’s child care costs. Depending on parents’ income, the state matches the employer’s contribution by as little as 50% up to 100%. Parents pay the rest.

Wonderschool, a child care company, is spearheading West Virginia’s program, launched earlier this year in collaboration with the state’s small business development agency.

The program is funded by a two-year, $1.9 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission and $495,000 from the state Department of Economic Development.

So far, the program has enrolled 14 employers and 17 child care providers in eight counties: Putnam, Wirt, Lincoln, Boone, Kanawha, Jackson, Roane and Mason. There are about 40 new employees in the process of enrolling.

Jason Moss, director of government affairs for Wonderschool, said the model can help small and medium-sized employers that can’t afford to provide child care on their own.

“Just this week, I’ve had several CEOs call me who are not in the eight counties saying, ‘Hey, what’s it going to take to bring this to our county?’” he said.

One participant, Hospice Care of West Virginia, has five employees enrolled so far. The company puts in $100 per month per employee to cover a portion of child care costs.

Ashley King, director of human resources and volunteer services for Hospice, said the program could help in the health care industry, where turnover is high.

“We look at it as a retention tool. We’ve had employees in the past, cut hours or step back in the summer because of child care costs,” she said.

‘We’ve got to start to reform child care in West Virginia’

The model isn’t unique to West Virginia.

Michigan officials piloted the program four years ago. After serving over 250 employers and saving the families $8 million a year in child care costs, the program was launched statewide with permanent state funding.

Lawmakers in West Virginia put several bills on the back burner during this year’s legislative session, after years of working groups and debates at the state capitol. One bill would’ve created a subsidy program for child care workers, and another would have increased rates paid to providers.

Child care is a major issue for three-quarters of the state Chamber of Commerce’s members and their ability to attract and retain workers, Brian Dayton, vice president of policy and advocacy, said.

“We are last in workforce participation in the United States,” he said. “We’ve got to start to reform child care in West Virginia.”

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This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.