A recent change to how Montana contracts with support services for childcare providers and families across the state is generating uncertainty, confusion and concern among the half-dozen nonprofits that have traditionally offered those services. For Tori Sproles, executive director of Bozeman-based Child Care Connections, the result may well be the loss of 15 local employees and render her a “stand-alone employee” by the end of the year.
“I’m writing reference letters every day,” Sproles told Montana Free Press this week. “And I can’t blame them. It breaks my heart because I’ve got a great team here and would want to keep them all if I could. But everybody has a life and everybody needs to make sure they take care of themselves and their families.”
For years, Child Care Connections and five other regionally based Montana nonprofits have contracted with the state to provide in-person assistance for people navigating the childcare system. The array of services ranged from trainings and criminal background checks for providers to helping families obtain state-funded childcare scholarships.
Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services this spring split those services into distinct contracts, and on Aug. 29 announced its intent to award the contract for provider-related services to New York-based for-profit company Shine Early Learning.
DPHHS offered separate contracts for family-centric services — primarily administering the state-funded Best Beginnings Scholarship for qualifying families — to three of Montana’s six existing childcare resource and referral nonprofits including Child Care Connections. However, Sproles announced earlier this month that without state funding associated with provider-related services, her nonprofit could not sustain itself on the family services contract alone. Child Care Connections withdrew from the process and will transfer its provider services to Shine effective Oct. 1.
The state also established a third contract for services aimed at assisting childcare providers in building their skills as business owners. The state health agency announced in July its intent to award that contract to the Montana nonprofit Zero to Five.
Asked why the health department altered its contract structure for childcare support services this year, spokesperson Jon Ebelt told Montana Free Press via email the decision was “part of our continued commitment to increasing access to high-quality, affordable childcare for hardworking Montana families.” Due to the state’s competitive new bidding process, he added, not all current resource and referral nonprofits were guaranteed a new contract.
“DPHHS is working to ensure that families and childcare providers maintain statewide access to resource and referral services during this temporary transition period,” Ebelt wrote. In a follow-up email, Ebelt added that the state health agency has included specific performance criteria in the new contracts. Contractors for family-centric services will be required to demonstrate increases in processing and provider participation in Best Beginnings scholarships. The contractor for provider services will be required to demonstrate retention of in-state child care businesses, growth in quality childcare programs, educational opportunities for providers and expansion of the number of childcare slots available for Montana families.
Shine Early Learning did not immediately respond to a request for comment or information on the services it will provide in Montana under the new contract and how it is working to facilitate the transition of those services.
Montana Advocates for Children coordinator Grace Decker said the contract change constitutes a “seismic shift” in how the state supports families and childcare providers. The latter, including CPR and first aid trainings, on-site mentorship and licensing requirements such as fingerprinting, will now be administered at a statewide level — a situation Decker said she has not seen in her more than two decades working within and advocating for the childcare system. Decker added that there’s a lot of “sadness” about the potential impacts to providers and families alike.
“Their first question is what does this mean for me, for the service I’m used to having or that I need,” Decker said. “I’ve seen a lot of concern among families about whether this means the Best Beginnings scholarship is going away or how they’re going to access it.”
The Best Beginnings scholarship will not be going away, but support for families with that subsidy, or seeking to obtain it, will now be delivered by two nonprofits rather than six.
As with Child Care Connections, the impacts to other existing Montana-based nonprofits are already being felt. MTFP interviews with multiple leaders at those nonprofits indicate that while much remains unknown about how the system will look moving forward, downsizing will be a near-term reality.
The nonprofit Butte 4-Cs, which has traditionally offered provider and family services in six southwest Montana counties, and which unsuccessfully bid for both contracts, announced last week that it will no longer provide those services after a 90-day transition period. Executive Director Terri Amberg told MTFP the nonprofit’s resulting losses could amount to more than $600,000 that funds eight to 10 of the organization’s current 18 positions, though she added that those numbers are just estimates right now. Butte 4-Cs offers a range of other programs and services funded through other avenues that Amberg hopes remain unaffected, but the situation is presenting serious challenges due to the amount of state funding that previously supported the operation.
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“I’m working with the landlords. We will probably have to move,” Amberg said. “We cannot stay in the space. It was an incredible cut to our program. All our little programs rely on each other.”
The Billings-based nonprofit Human Resource Development Council, which has been serving providers and families in southern and southeastern Montana, also bid unsuccessfully on both contracts. State records show the Kalispell-based nonprofit Nurturing Center did not submit a bid for either contract. The organizations did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
The change is also posing a challenge to Montana’s other two longstanding childcare resource and referral nonprofits: Great Falls-based Family Connections, which provides services throughout north, central and eastern Montana, and Missoula-based Child Care Resources. Both bidded unsuccessfully for the state’s provider service contract but were awarded contracts to continue supporting families seeking to obtain Best Beginnings scholarships. Family Connections Executive Director Kim Stull said the loss of provider services and associated revenue will reduce the nonprofit’s 22-member staff by eight or nine positions, some of whom have already left or been laid off.
“That’s pretty significant to us,” Stull said. “Some people with tenure of over ten years with us or more. It was quite a blow to our agency for sure.”
Family Connections and Child Care Resources will also have to expand the family services side of their operations to cover not only their existing regions of the state but those currently serviced by four other nonprofits. The organizations are still negotiating with the state health agency regarding what the new service areas will look like, but Child Care Resources Executive Director Kelly Rosenleaf said there are roughly 3,750 families utilizing the Best Beginnings scholarship statewide. Her organization’s share of that caseload will grow from about 450 to 1,800, and the state caps how many of those cases can be handled by a single family service staffer at 150. Based on those numbers, Rosenleaf estimates Child Care Resources will have to hire an additional eight or nine people.
“That’s a huge expansion,” Rosenleaf said. “We can try to hire some of the people from the other entities, but there’s no guarantee. They might be done with all this.”
Stull said the family services caseload at Family Connections will likely double, necessitating additional hires. Those jobs revolve heavily around program eligibility, state databases and working directly with families, she added, making them “very different” from the jobs lost on the provider services side, where employees work directly with childcare providers and tend to have a history in the early education profession. Stull added that the state health agency this week offered to extend existing contracts through December to facilitate the transition of various services to their new vendors.
Stull and Rosenleaf also noted that the expansion of their organizations’ family services work into other parts of the state raises questions about physical infrastructure. They and other nonprofit leaders said families often come into their offices for in-person assistance due a variety of challenges including internet access, familiarity with technology and language barriers. In Bozeman, Sproles said Child Care Connections has seen an increase in the number of Spanish-speaking families stopping by for help with state scholarship applications, and employs bilingual staff at both its Bozeman and Helena offices.
It’s largely the depth and familiarity of those existing services that Montana’s current childcare resource and referral entities fear will be impacted most. However, Stull stressed that the changes — while uncertain and in flux right now — don’t mean such services are ending.
“They may look different, but they’ll still be available for families and providers,” Stull said. “That’s important as we navigate this. We’ve gotten some calls, and we just don’t want anyone to think that this is ending.”
This story was updated Sept. 11, 2024, with additional information from the state health department regarding specific requirements included in new family and provider service contracts.
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