In Lincoln, lawmakers fight to maintain child care aid as parents and providers struggle

For the second time in three months, Kirsten Mahrt let the news sink in: Her 2-year-old’s child care provider was closing her doors.

Mahrt, a part-time speech-language pathologist, had used her background in child development to find the Lincoln provider who closed last month. Just as she had painstakingly chosen the first provider, who closed in November. 

It’s incredibly stressful, she said, but at this point, she feels numb. For now, she’s relying on help from her parents to continue working three days a week.

“I don’t know where to go from here,” Mahrt said. “I’m nervous about what my career will look like moving forward.”

Her friends have had similar experiences. In fact, hundreds of Lincoln parents have found themselves in that same situation in recent years.

Eleven Lincoln child care centers have closed since late 2023, not including in-home providers like the ones Mahrt depended on. Some new centers have opened. All told, it has amounted to 505 fewer slots for kids, according to nonprofit Lincoln Littles, which helps both providers and parents.

Just last month, The Ivy League Day Care Center, run by the Nebraska Farm Bureau, announced it will close in May. 

State lawmakers in recent years have attempted to bring some stability to the system, but those efforts have failed to significantly move the needle. And with the current legislative session winding down, the most meaningful legislation addressing child care would maintain a financial resource for parents that has become the status quo. 

“I would say it’s precarious on a daily basis,” said Anne Brandt, Lincoln Littles executive director. “Because even though all of these things exist and it helps (some providers), the bigger issue is the lack of stability within the system as a whole.”

Child care accessibility and affordability are issues across the state: 74% of Nebraska’s kids under age 6 have all parents in the workforce, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by First Five Nebraska, a nonprofit that advocates for early childhood initiatives.

Statewide, child care center capacity has grown by 8% since 2019, while in-home provider capacity has decreased by 16.5%, according to First Five. In-home programs are especially important in areas that don’t have the population to sustain centers, according to the nonprofit, and are typically a less expensive option for parents.

In Lincoln, most of the recent center closures happened in 2024. Things have slowed down since: Just two centers shut down last year. Ivy League is the first of this year, according to Lincoln Littles. 

Taylor Rutz, a dental hygienist in Lincoln, experienced one of last year’s closures firsthand when Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital shuttered its center. Her daughter had gone there since infancy, and she put her son on the waitlist before she had even told family she was pregnant.

“You kind of feel that ache a little bit, that you’re not the one in charge of them all the time. … It just felt good knowing that the people there really did care about our kids a lot,” Rutz said.

After the announcement, Rutz looked at Lincoln Littles’ list of providers accepting new kids. She started booking tours and getting on lists. Ultimately, her family chose a center outside of Lincoln, closer to Firth, where they now live. 

Within a few days, they knew it wasn’t a fit. They switched again, and the second center has worked well since.

It’s not all bad news. Expected child care center openings in Lincoln should bring about 300 new openings, according to Lincoln Littles.

But a sustainable fix will take action from businesses and philanthropy, combined with a baseline of perpetual public funding, said Brandt, Lincoln Littles executive director. 

A 2023 tax credit package sponsored by Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln included a refundable child care tax credit for parents. It’s in high demand. During its first year, the $15 million allotted ran dry in five weeks. This year, parents claimed the same amount in three days.

Nebraska has a child care crisis. Looming cuts to Medicaid will worsen it.

Another Bostar bill got rid of some state regulations for providers. A bill aimed at cutting providers’ red tape, from Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, is still in play this year.

One resource that has made a difference: The state’s child care subsidy program, which helps parents pay for child care provided they meet income eligibility and other requirements.

In 2021, Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha sponsored a bill that bumped income eligibility from 130% to 185% of the federal poverty level. But that bump is set to expire Oct. 1. DeBoer is seeking to make it permanent.

The change has allowed more than a thousand additional families a year to qualify, according to First Five, and if legislators don’t keep the boost, Nebraska would be among states with the most restrictive criteria in the country. 

Nebraska is among only a handful of states that haven’t done much to increase child care supply, according to Walter Gilliam, executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska. If the effort to sustain eligibility levels fails, he said, it would “further put Nebraska behind the eight ball in terms of competitiveness with other states.”

“Many people in Nebraska talk about brain drain,” Gilliam added. “Sometimes, we forget to talk about all the predictable reasons why a brain drain might happen, especially with our younger working families.”

With 13 days left in the legislative session, it looks well-positioned to become law: Legislators will consider whether to fold the language and $10.7 million of funding into its budget bills that entered the second round of debate Thursday.

Last year, its price tag prevented its passage. This year, with the expiration date looming, there’s more urgency. DeBoer said she feels good about its chances, even as lawmakers grapple with yet another budget shortfall.

“I think people recognize that if we’re going to get ourselves out of this problem, one of the things we’re going to have to do is have the people who want to be working in Nebraska able to be working,” she said. “And, if we can’t, how do we ever get out of this mess?”