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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

1,300 Kids Minus Childcare Subsidies = Tough Choices for NV Families

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Monday, January 9, 2012   

LAS VEGAS - More Nevada parents face tough choices today, after the state announced another round of service cuts, eliminating child care subsidies for more than 200 low-income families.

Jamie Burnett, child care resource and referral program director for The Children's Cabinet, says that, when poor families lose this subsidy, many have to decide if they can afford to keep working. Some go on public assistance, while others depend on friends, neighbors and other unlicensed sources of child care.

It's the second cut this fiscal year, and Burnett says the combination of cuts is putting a lot more Nevada children at risk.

"That's a little more than 1300 children statewide: that's a lot of kids not in potentially high-quality childcare."

Legal Services Statewide Advocacy Coordinator Jon Sasser says Nevadans are seeing at first hand the human toll of Governor Brian Sandoval's budget policy. In Sasser's view, Sandoval chose deep cuts to services some families desperately needed during the recession, in order to avoid tax increases for mining and big business.

"He cut the state portion of child care funding in his budget by 68 percent from what it had been the year before. The Legislature attempted to restore a couple million dollars of that funding, but the governor stood firm on his 'no new taxes' pledge."

Burnett says it costs the state about $400 a month per child to maintain the subsidies. She figures that's a drop in the bucket, compared with the kinds of social services poor families often end up needing when they don't have access to child care.

"Once you start looking at unemployment and Medicaid and food stamps, and all those other services, I'm thinking 400 dollars is a pretty good deal."

A representative of the State Division of Welfare and Child Support Services says the department hopes spending reductions over the next few months may produce enough savings that child care subsidies can be restored to at least some Nevada families.

The state legislature's interim finance committee could take a closer look at the subsidy issue next month.


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