INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) announced that it will stop issuing new childcare vouchers in 2026 due to a lack of funding.
The move follows the reinstatement of the agency’s childcare voucher waitlist nearly a year ago. That list has ballooned from about 3,000 children in December 2024 to roughly 30,000 today.
“This decision puts many childcare programs at risk,” said Jacqueline Strong of Little Duckling Early Learning. “Without vouchers, families can’t enroll their children, and a lot of programs won’t survive.”
Adam Alson, director of FSSA’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning (OECOSL), said the state cannot afford to expand the program until at least 2027.
“We cannot be so far off from what we enroll versus what our funding is,” Alson said. “It just cannot happen again.”
As of late 2024, about 70,000 children were enrolled in Indiana’s childcare voucher program. That number has since dropped to 55,000, largely due to the expiration of over $1 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds the state had relied on to sustain the program.
Alson said this year’s developments highlight “the fragility of Indiana’s childcare system—how quickly temporary funding can create unsustainable expectations.”
Strong criticized the reversal in priorities:
“How did we go from understanding that these families really need adequate childcare and good programs to saying, ‘Yeah, they may need it, but we’re not going to pay for it’?”
The Indiana Chamber of Commerce estimates that the lack of affordable, accessible childcare cost the state’s economy $4.2 billion in 2024.
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