Lawmakers approve $67 million to fund child care grants, but is it enough?

CHARLOTTE — An 11th-hour move to fund child care in North Carolina was approved as the North Carolina state legislature signed off on $67 million to fund grants that expire Monday.

Channel 9′s Evan Donovan learned that it may not be enough to keep a child care shortage from getting worse.

Federal grants had helped child care facilities in the state pay their workers more to keep them on staff. With federal funding expiring, many child care facilities were getting desperate.

“This is not a game!” workers chanted in Raleigh this week.

They protested Wednesday at the state legislature until they got arrested.

“Eight of us had already made up our minds that we would participate in nonviolent civil disobedience,” said Emma Biggs.

Biggs told Donovan she already had to tell parents of kids at her Pathway Preschool Center in east Charlotte that they were raising prices by $50 per week per child.

“Just trying to to really slim down any costs we can until everyone can get their funding that we need,” she said.

In 2021, NC got $1.3 billion in American Rescue Plan funds for child care stabilization grants. State lawmakers shifted money around several times, but it finally runs out on Monday.

Thursday in Charlotte, Gov. Roy Cooper made his pitch for lawmakers to pick up that slack.

“We are at a critical juncture in our state. We are in an emergency situation. And I’ll tell you this -- we won’t continue to be first in business if we become last in education,” Cooper said.

By the afternoon, we got word that the state House had passed a special funding bill to backfill those grants at 75% of their current levels through December.

While the passage is good news, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said it’s not enough to fully fund the compensation grants. That means the reduced amount will likely lead to more child care closures in the near future.

If you’re in need of child care resources, click this link for help in the Charlotte area.

(WATCH: ‘They won’t have nowhere to go’: Day cares close doors to demand funding on Day Without Child Care)