Improving Access to Child Care

In New Hampshire, child care for a family with two children under five costs more than $32,000 per year. Child care scholarships provide critical support for working families, but complex paperwork requirements, upfront payment demands, and burdensome data tracking for providers create significant burdens. Families must navigate intrusive documentation requests and unclear cost-sharing expectations while potentially facing hundreds of dollars in weekly expenses before their scholarships are approved – a system that strains parents and child care providers alike.

2025 legislation streamlines the New Hampshire Child Care Scholarship for parents and providers, ensuring Granite State families have better access to the program.

About the Bill

Proposed legislation will streamline the process for parents and providers by making the following changes to the New Hampshire Child Care Scholarship Program:

Streamline paperwork through fast-track applications for families and simplified data entry for providers
Reduce processing delays by awarding presumptive eligibility
Improve the payment system to child care centers through a prospective payment system

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Fast Track Applications would simplify the application process for families who do not wish to opt-in to other state supplemental assistance programs. This would cut down on the need to provide grocery bills, housing costs, and more for New Hampshire Families.

Simplified Data Entry would simplify the attendance verification process for providers, which would allow child care administrators to spend more time caring for children.

A 60-day temporary period of presumptive eligibility would allow providers and families to place children in available slots promptly without the burden of financial uncertainty while applications are being processed. New Hampshire already uses presumptive eligibility in its Medicaid program.

Currently, child care centers track the attendance of children and then receive weekly payments for scholarships recipients. Proactive payments would remove the upfront burden by issuing payments at the beginning of each payment period.