Child-care subsidy backlog and payment system failures leave some Missouri providers unpaid; DESE says 70% of backlog cleared

Missouri child-care providers and parents told the House Budget Committee on Feb. 3 that a multi-month failure after a state payment system change left numerous providers without expected subsidy payments in 2024. DESE staff told the committee the primary causes were a flawed data migration and a broken payment calculator after a system switchover; the department said the bulk of systemic errors have been fixed and that 70% of the historic backlog has been processed.

What happened: DESE said the state migrated provider, family and child records into a new childcare-payment platform in mid-2024. The migration omitted or mis-mapped many records; in addition a rate/calculation error prevented routine payments from being created or caused partial payments. "Pieces of those components that are needed for a payment weren't working properly…