Some Head Start preschools in Pennsylvania and across the country are finding themselves in financial limbo — still unable to access their federal funding in a delay that providers say could put child care at risk.
Head Start administrators ran into problems accessing their federal funding last week at the same time the Trump administration announced it was putting federal grants for many programs on hold. But then access returned. And the freeze on federal grants was scrapped altogether.
But for some Head Start providers, the problem continues. When they try to access their federal funding using the online payment management system, they receive a message of "pending" or "in process."
Kara McFalls, executive director of the Pennsylvania Head Start Association, said she knows of six providers in Pennsylvania that have not received all or part of their funding.
“Head Starts are not allowed to have reserves sitting in the bank," McFalls said. "They pay their expenditures and then they go into the system that has proven to be incredibly successful up until last week. They do their drawdown and know those funds will be sitting in their bank within 24 hours.”
According to the National Head Start Association, at least 45 Head Start grant recipients across the country are seeing a payment delay. For some, that means looking for different funding options, but for others it could mean closing down.
“While it remains unclear why this delay is happening, it must be resolved immediately or thousands of families and their children will be at risk of losing the critical early care and educational services they depend on to work, go to school, and develop," NHSA Executive Director Yasmina Vinci said in a statement.
McFalls said they’ve been working with members of Congress from both political parties and have seen small steps. She noted that Congress had already approved the funding.
“This is a system that worked wonderfully up until last week. And there’s not really an indication as to what happened and why this happened," McFalls said. "And we just want assurity that whatever went sideways is fixed.”
