The Partnership for Wisconsin’s Economic Success (PWES) recently urged Wisconsin policymakers to repair the declining funding in the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program by significantly increasing the payment rates.

In a letter sent to the Wisconsin Joint Committee on Finance, PWES writes, “We are concerned that the decrease of Wisconsin Shares payments has made it difficult for child care providers to maintain and improve the quality of their programs and impedes their efforts to move up the YoungStar quality scale. Declining Wisconsin Shares payment rates are undermining the very goals of YoungStar.”

Given that the Wisconsin Shares rates have been frozen for seven years, PWES believes that, “Shifting $35 million of federal funds intended to help low-income children and families to other purposes may seem prudent in the middle of current budget deliberations, but it seems a poor choice when that money could be helping our most vulnerable children learn and progress.”

To read PWES’s full letter sent to the Joint Committee on Finance, click here.

About PWES:

PWES was formed in 2008 and is the first state chapter of the Partnership for America’s Economic Success, now named Ready Nation. PWES is a network of business and non-profit leaders interested in the development of young children, both for their individual benefit and for the long-term economic development of the State of Wisconsin.