Tagged: Childcare

Shironda Young waited two years to get her job as a cook. It's become the best job she's ever had.

Now, Young may have to give the job up because of recently announced cuts to a state program that gives financial assistance for child care to low-income working families.  Young cooks for a university; she doesn't work in the summer. The staff at the day care for her four children have told her that she'll likely be denied entry into Kentucky's Child Care Assistance Program when she reapplies in fall 2013.

"I'll probably have to quit my job," Young said. "I absolutely have nobody to watch my kids. I can't afford day care—it's like $500 a week."

The scheme, prosecutors allege, worked like this:

A parent would sign up a child for the subsidy program meant to help low-income families cover childcare costs while parents worked or went to school. The parent would sign an attendance sheets for several days in advance. The child would never show up. The daycare would submit the paperwork to the program's administrator and be paid as if the child attended.