SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — South Dakota child care providers say they’re “heartbroken” over Governor Larry Rhoden’s veto of a bill intended to address the child care crisis in the state.
An effort to override the governor’s veto fell short in the House Thursday.
The bill would have expanded subsidies from the state to help more child care workers, so they in turn, can afford child care expenses of their own.
South Dakota child care advocates expected the heaviest lift of the child care bill to be in the state senate.
“When it passed the senate, we cried, because we were so relieved,” Embe Director of Curriculum & Licensing Sarah Meagher said.
Once it was over that hurdle, child care providers expected an easy glide path to the governor’s desk. Until he vetoed the bill.
“To be so far in the process, to receive a veto, it was shocking and it was heartbreaking,” Meagher said.
House rejects veto override of child care bill
Governor Larry Rhoden says the bill expanding eligibility for government assistance would have given child care workers unfair preferential treatment. Opponents of the bill also cited added cost to the state.
“I think the threat of the cost was what derailed it and just the fact that they don’t want to use child care, the child care assistance program in order to increase our workforce in the child care industry, Rep. Erin Healy, (D) Sioux Falls said.
Meagher says members of a task force, that included people from Rhoden’s own administration, never raised objections to expanding the child care assistance.
“Of the dozens of solutions, this was one that felt like it was possible and we didn’t hear at any time in this process that it wouldn’t be able to pass,” Meagher said.
Despite her disappointment at the governor’s veto, Meagher sees some hope in the future, since the child care bill came so close to crossing the legislative finish line.
“The conversations that we’ve had far exceed what had been talked about in the past, so that gives me reason for hope. But I don’t know what comes next,” Meagher said.
Rep. Healy was one of the House members who voted Thursday in favor of overriding the governor’s veto.
She was the main sponsor of the bill in the House and expects lawmakers to take the summer to come up with new ideas addressing child care to present to next year’s legislative session.
She says they won’t try to revive the bill that was vetoed by Rhoden.
