Health and Human Services briefs appropriations panel on childcare capacity, assistance and quality steps

Jessica Thompson, Health and Human Services, told the Appropriations Committee's Human Services section that childcare and housing remain central to workforce stability and that the department intends to keep tracking both supply and demand as policy-makers weigh continued investments.

Thompson said, "childcare and housing are 2 things that thread their way through a lot of that conversation," and summarized recent state and federal investments, program uptake and remaining data gaps that affect policy design.

The update summarized three policy pillars the department uses to evaluate childcare: affordability, availability and quality. Thompson told the committee that licensed capacity remains the state's most reliable dataset but is an imperfect proxy for actual availability because providers often report lower "desired" capacity than their license allows and daily staffing shortages further reduce active capacity.

Thompson said North Dakota's licensed capacity by county is current to December 2024; the department found a roughly net gain of 49 licensed spaces statewide in 2024 even as the number of licensed providers fell by 47. She urged caution about interpreting county-level capacity as equivalent to family access because of…