The Department utilized $215M in federal funds to help mitigate the impacts of the global pandemic on the child care field - including $100.8M from the CARES Act and $115M from the Coronavirus Relief Fund. These funds supported three primary activities:
Six rounds of the Child Care Relief Fund grants were available for child care providers throughout the state. All six rounds offered funding to support child care providers operational costs and Rounds 3-6 included funds to make care more affordable for families through tuition credits. Please see the Final Grant Numbers.
Thank you to every provider that submitted an application for Round 6 of the Child Care Relief Fund. There was a tremendous response from across the state - clearly signaling an ongoing need for funding to support child care providers. Unfortunately, there are limited resources to pay grants. While MDE has been able to reallocate some funds to respond to the significant number of applications, some Round 6 applications will not be funded at this time.
Grants are being awarded on a first come, first serve basis (determined by when an application was submitted and verified as complete). MDE will post a list of grants that have been approved for payment. Once all funding is expended, MDE will contact any applicant we are unable to fund to notify you.
We know this is a difficult time, and we are continuing to advocate for additional investments in child care. If additional funds become available, any application that was not funded will be first in line to receive funding.
In the meantime, we encourage you to monitor Michigan.gov/childcare for additional funding opportunities and updates.
To check the status of your grant application payment, please go to CARES Grant Payments Submitted to Treasury for Processing.
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