JEFFERSON CITY – The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary’s (DESE’s) Office of Childhood (OOC) continues to clear the child care subsidy backlog in family applications for child care assistance, provider applications for subsidy contracts, and provider payment reviews.
The OOC experienced several technical challenges launching the new Child Care Data System (CCDS) in December 2023, which created the backlog. The number of backlogged cases has declined each month since summer 2024, when additional temporary and contracted staff were added. The OOC and its vendors are scheduled to resolve all necessary technical issues within the new CCDS by the end of this month (January 2025), which will help prevent any future backlog.
“DESE understands the important role the subsidy program plays in the child care industry and the value the program provides to Missouri’s workforce,” said Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger. “The OOC team will not stop until all provider payments are reviewed and resolution requests are processed accordingly.”
In 2024, the OOC paid $203,936,531 to child care providers serving subsidy-eligible children, processed 39,006 applications for families to receive subsidized child care, and processed 2,767 contracts for providers to serve subsidy-eligible children. Learn more here about the work accomplished in 2024 to support the child care subsidy program and other early care and education efforts.
- Family Applications & Provider Contracts: The most recent backlog report shows the prior backlog has been cleared, and the OOC is processing cases within the last month for family applications and provider contract applications, which is near the OOC’s expected processing time.
- Payment Corrections:Currently, subsidy payments are being processed correctly each day for providers’ attendance claims since fixing the payment calculator in the system in summer 2024. While there continues to be a backlog in payment resolution requests from the time the system wasn’t working properly, the OOC is making progress reviewing these requests. To date, team members have closed out or paid approximately 70 percent of all payment resolution requests in the backlog queue.
“The teams addressing the system issues and working the backlog have made great progress — the additional resources and strategies we put in place last year are working,” said OOC Assistant Commissioner Pam Thomas. “We have not yet met all the goals of this project, but we are getting close. We continue to express our gratitude to families, providers, and other stakeholders for their patience.”
The CCDS provides a web-based, near real-time system for families and child care providers to enter and view their information for child care subsidy. There are about 22,000 children and 2,000 providers actively participating in the child care subsidy program in Missouri. Families looking for child care assistance can learn more here to determine if they may qualify for state assistance.