Evers promotes funding program for child care providers during statewide tour

FENNIMORE, Wis. (Civic Media) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is touring the state to promote his state budget proposal to make a significant investment into the state’s Child Care Counts program.

The program helps child care providers across Wisconsin maintain staffing and pay for operations as demand for child care services remains high, especially in rural areas.

Evers toured the child care facility on campus at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College Thursday, where he met with staff and heard from people with children in the child care program there about what the funding has meant for their area.

The feedback so far has confirmed, for the governor, why the Child Care Counts program is important for the child care industry in the state.

“That’s why I’m spending a lot of my time doing this, making sure people understand how important it is,” Evers said.

In Fennimore, SWTC has received $310,000 in funding through the program, which it has used to make updates to the facility, retain staff, and strengthen its early childhood instructional programs. The child care workers in the program are all graduates of SWTC’s program.

It’s also a unique setup as SWTC offers child care for workers in the program, as well as SWTC employees and community members. In rural southwestern Wisconsin, child care providers that have the capacity of SWTC’s program (60 children) are fairly rare, meaning loss of care facilities in the area could create even more demand for a service that, in SWTC’s case, puts children on waiting lists almost weekly.

Funding for Child Care Counts is set to expire in June, increasing the governor’s urgency in getting something done to extend the program.

“Some legislators don’t understand how important early childhood is,” Evers said. “I’ve seen numbers that I think are probably low that if we don’t do something with this budget, that about 20% of these places will close.”

Evers is proposing over $500 million in investments for child care needs in Wisconsin in his state budget, including $480 million to make the Child Care Counts program permanent.

It’s part of a package of proposals aimed at bolstering education and child care in what Evers has labeled ‘The Year of the Kid.’

“We have the resources,” Evers said, referencing the state’s record budget surplus. “Everything is now in the hands of the legislature. I don’t want to make any guesses, but I’m very, very hopeful they understand the education part of it but equally important is how it impacts our economy and the workforce.”

In addition to losing one in five child care centers, Evers said that the economic impacts include rising unemployment as centers shut down, loss of people in the workforce in order to stay home to take care of their children, and leave tens of thousands of children without access to child care across the state.

The total economic impact of losing 20% of child care centers in Wisconsin would be about a half billion dollars, according to the Evers administration in a release.

My budget plan to help working families with everyday, out-of-pocket costs:
➡️ Provides $2 billion in tax relief for middle-class families, seniors, veterans, homeowners, and renters
➡️ Lowers the cost of child care
➡️ Prevents price gouging on medications and healthcare

— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) March 2, 2025

“We have a high employment rate in this state and very low unemployment rate,” Evers said. “If people start closing their doors to doing this work, we’re going to have a lot of people leaving the workforce, and that’s going to impact our economy.”

For more details on what is being proposed in the governor’s budget, you can visit the Department of Administration website.