Every day, thousands of Alabama parents rely on child care so they can report to hospitals, schools, manufacturing plants, military installations, offices, small businesses, and countless other workplaces that keep our economy moving. When the child care system is strong, Alabama's workforce is stronger. When it weakens, the consequences extend far beyond individual families, affecting employers, local communities, and the state's economic future.
Today, Alabama's child care system is facing one of its most challenging moments in recent memory. Across the state, child care providers are warning that a series of overlapping challenges is placing extraordinary strain on an already fragile system. They point to the return of the statewide child care subsidy waiting list, increasing administrative responsibilities associated with the implementation of ARISE Care, persistent workforce shortages, rising operating costs, and significant changes to federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) policy as factors making it increasingly difficult to sustain their programs.
Taken individually, each of these challenges presents significant operational and financial hurdles. Together, they are creating conditions that many providers believe threaten the long-term stability of Alabama's child care infrastructure. For years, Alabama's child care providers have adapted to challenge after challenge. They remained open through a global pandemic, cared for the children of essential workers, navigated rising costs, and continued serving families despite chronic workforce shortages and limited resources. Time and again, they have demonstrated extraordinary resilience.
Today, however, many providers are asking a difficult question: How much longer can we continue?
"I've been doing this for more than 30 years, and I've never seen providers
carrying this many responsibilities at one time. Every day feels like we're
trying to stay one step ahead of the next change."
— Carmen Coleman-Jones, Carmen's Childcare, Inc.
A System Under Increasing Pressure
Child care is more than an educational service. It is essential infrastructure that allows parents to participate in the workforce, employers to retain employees, and communities to thrive. Yet the businesses providing this essential service often operate on narrow financial margins while balancing rising costs, workforce challenges, regulatory requirements, and the needs of the families they serve.
Many providers now describe a convergence of pressures unlike any they have experienced before. Rather than responding to a single challenge, they are attempting to manage multiple changes occurring simultaneously—each requiring additional time, staffing, financial resources, and administrative attention.
"It's not one issue that's overwhelming providers—it's all of them happening at once. Every new responsibility comes while we're still trying to meet the needs of children, support families, manage
our staff, and keep our programs financially stable. That's the reality providers are facing every day."
— Jannie Hampton, NBCC Child Care
Understanding the Return of the Waiting List
The reinstatement of Alabama's statewide child care subsidy waiting list on May 8, 2026, marked the return of a policy many providers hoped had been left behind. The Alabama Department of Human Resources publicly announced the change on May 15, 2026. Under the current policy, new subsidy applications submitted on or after the effective date are placed on a first-come, first-served waiting list. Children involved in foster care, protective services, and families participating in the Alabama JOBS Program remain exempt if they otherwise qualify.
To understand why providers are so concerned, it is important to recognize that Alabama's waiting list is not new. For nearly two decades before 2018, the state maintained a chronic waiting list because available funding could not meet demand. At its peak in early 2017, more than 6,632 children were waiting for assistance, with some families waiting months—and in some cases years—to receive child care assistance.
That changed in 2018 when Alabama received an additional $40.7 million in federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funding. The increased investment enabled the Alabama Department of Human Resources to eliminate the statewide backlog. Subsequent federal CARES Act and American Rescue Plan funding helped sustain expanded access while providing stabilization grants that allowed providers to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For nearly eight years, Alabama operated without a formal statewide waiting list. Its return signals the end of that period of relative stability and raises renewed concerns about whether available funding can continue meeting the growing demand for affordable child care.
"The waiting list doesn't just affect families—it affects us. When families can't
access assistance, our enrollment becomes unpredictable, and it becomes
incredibly difficult to budget for staffing or plan ahead."
— Arlean Cole, Huntsville, Arlean's Little Treasures
Why Does Alabama Use a Waiting List?
The return of the waiting list is not simply an administrative decision—it is a budget management strategy used when demand for child care assistance exceeds available funding. Like every state, Alabama administers its subsidy program through the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), a capped block grant that provides a finite amount of funding each year. Because the program is not an entitlement, states cannot serve every eligible child when demand exceeds available resources. When funding falls short, states generally have four options: reduce eligibility, lower provider reimbursement rates, limit the number of children served, or establish a waiting list until additional funding becomes available.
Historically, Alabama has relied on waiting lists to manage this funding gap while preserving eligibility standards for qualifying families. From the state's perspective, the waiting list serves as a fiscal management tool that keeps expenditures within available appropriations. The challenge, however, is that a waiting list does not reduce the need for child care—it simply delays access to assistance. Families who qualify may still be unable to receive help immediately, forcing many to postpone employment, reduce work hours, rely on unstable care arrangements, or leave the workforce altogether.
Providers experience the effects as well. Even when classroom space exists, many eligible families cannot enroll because they cannot afford tuition without subsidy assistance. This creates uncertainty around enrollment, staffing decisions, and long-term financial planning while fixed operating costs continue to rise. The return of the waiting list therefore reflects more than an administrative policy change. It underscores a broader reality: demand for affordable child care continues to outpace the public resources available to support it.
Administrative Demands Continue to Grow
Earlier this year, the Alabama Department of Human Resources completed the statewide implementation of ARISE Care, the state's new child care management system for the Child Care Subsidy Program. The system was designed to modernize subsidy administration by replacing paper-based attendance verification with a digital platform that includes provider and family portals, a mobile application, QR code scanning, and geographic geofencing to verify daily attendance for children receiving child care subsidies.
The transition represents one of the most significant operational changes to Alabama's subsidy program in recent years. The goals of ARISE Care—including improved accountability, stronger program integrity, and more accurate attendance reporting—are objectives many providers support. However, implementing the system has also required providers and families to adapt to new technology, new reporting requirements, and new administrative processes during a period when many programs are already operating with limited staffing and financial capacity.
While providers generally support efforts to strengthen accountability and improve data accuracy, many say the day-to-day reality of ARISE Care has added a new layer of administrative work. Center directors in particular report spending more time managing system requirements, troubleshooting attendance issues, and assisting families with compliance—on top of already strained staffing levels and rising operational costs. The system requires parents to use a mobile application to check children in and out through QR code scanning and location-based technology. Providers report spending additional time assisting families with technical issues, monitoring attendance records, reconciling errors, responding to system notifications, and ensuring compliance with daily reporting requirements.
Providers also express concern about the system's strict operational requirements. Under current policy, attendance records must be corrected within specified timeframes, and families who fail to comply with attendance verification requirements risk losing their subsidy eligibility. With the statewide waiting list now in effect, providers worry that families who lose their subsidy because of administrative errors may be required to rejoin the waiting list before assistance can be restored.
Many providers support the goals of accountability and accurate attendance reporting. Their concern is not with modernization itself, but with ensuring that implementation includes sufficient flexibility, technical support, and safeguards to prevent families and providers from experiencing unintended consequences because of technology or administrative challenges.
"We support accountability, but we're spending more time troubleshooting
technology than focusing on children. Every missed scan, every correction, every call
from a parent takes time away from running our center."
— Katina Surles, First Years Child Development Center
The Workforce Challenge Has Never Gone Away
Even before these recent developments, Alabama's child care workforce faced significant challenges. Providers continue to struggle to recruit and retain qualified educators while competing with industries that often offer higher wages, stronger benefits, and more predictable schedules. Existing staff frequently assume additional responsibilities simply to keep classrooms operating.
"We're asking the same people to teach, clean, answer phones, complete paperwork, and
now manage increasingly complex technology. There simply aren't enough hours in the day."
— Dr. Constance Dial, Trinity Kids Learning Center
As administrative responsibilities continue to expand without corresponding investments in staffing or operational support, many providers report increasing levels of stress and burnout throughout the workforce.
Federal Policy Changes Add Another Layer of Uncertainty
As providers adapt to operational challenges at the state level, they are also navigating significant changes in federal child care policy. The federal rule, Restoring Flexibility in the Child Care and Development Fund, became effective on July 13, 2026, rescinding several requirements adopted in 2024 and returning many policy decisions to individual states. States are no longer federally required to cap family copayments at seven percent of household income, reimburse providers based on enrollment rather than attendance, make prospective payments, or use grants and contracts as preferred payment mechanisms. Supporters argue the rule restores state flexibility and reduces regulatory burden. Others worry that moving these protections from federal requirements to state options could create greater uncertainty for providers as states revise their child care plans. For Alabama providers, these federal changes arrive on top of pandemic stabilization funding having ended, the statewide waiting list returning and ARISE Care implementation still unfolding. The convergence of these developments has created uncertainty about what additional changes may lie ahead and how they could affect providers, working families, and children's access to care.
What's at Stake
The challenges facing child care providers extend well beyond individual businesses. Alabama's child care system is a vital part of the state's economic infrastructure. According to the Alabama Department of Human Resources, Alabama is home to approximately 1,436 licensed child care centers, 529 licensed family child care homes, and 503 ministry-exempt child care facilities. Together, these programs support tens of thousands of Alabama children and make it possible for parents to participate in the workforce. During Fiscal Year 2025 alone, more than 43,000 children received child care assistance through Alabama's subsidy program, and approximately $256 million was paid to providers to help families access care. These numbers illustrate both the scale and importance of Alabama's child care system.
Yet providers caution that the health of the system cannot be measured solely by the number of programs that remain open today. The more important question is whether those programs have the financial stability, staffing capacity, and operational support necessary to continue serving families tomorrow. A child care system does not suddenly collapse overnight. Pressure builds over time. Programs struggle to fill vacant teaching positions. Owners work longer hours to absorb additional responsibilities. Administrative requirements continue to expand while staffing remains limited. Financial margins become increasingly tight. Eventually, providers begin making difficult decisions about reducing enrollment, limiting services, or closing classrooms altogether. Many providers believe Alabama is approaching an inflection point. Without meaningful investments, practical implementation strategies, and policies that recognize the operational realities of delivering child care, the pressures facing today's providers could become tomorrow's capacity crisis. The consequences would extend far beyond individual child care programs to working families, employers, local communities, and Alabama's economy, as a whole.
The Voices Policymakers Need to Hear
The future of Alabama's child care system should be informed not only by budgets, regulations, and compliance measures, but also by the experiences of the providers who care for Alabama's children every day. These professionals understand the practical implications of public policy because they live them. Their experiences can help identify both the intended and unintended consequences of policy decisions while providing valuable insight into what is needed to strengthen Alabama's child care infrastructure.
For decades, Alabama's child care providers have demonstrated remarkable resilience. But resilience should not be mistaken for limitless capacity. Today, providers across Alabama are delivering a consistent message: they remain committed to accountability, high-quality care, and serving families, but they need policies and implementation strategies that strengthen—not overwhelm—the child care system.
If Alabama's child care providers—who have carried the system through a pandemic, workforce shortages, rising costs, and years of policy change—are now telling us they are reaching their limit, the question is no longer whether we should listen.
The question is whether Alabama can afford not to.
