Last Tuesday, I drove to Jefferson City to observe a special hearing held by the House Education Committee, addressing a critical issue wreaking havoc on Missouri’s childcare facilities: delayed payments from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Since last December, bugs in the software system that DESE uses to process payments have prevented checks from being written, resulting in significant financial distress for facilities that rely on state-administered funds to stay afloat. Some of these facilities have been forced to close their doors, while others are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, owed thousands of dollars.
The hearing opened with testimony from DESE managers overseeing the software rollout. They promised that everything would be fixed by next month—a promise that felt hollow and unrealistic. Having worked in software development for decades, I’m all too familiar with the pattern of management providing overly optimistic timelines that rarely hold up. As the hearing progressed, it became clear that this wasn’t the first time DESE management had claimed that the fix was just a month away. They’ve been making these promises for months, all while childcare facilities continued to suffer.
The most impactful part of the hearing was the testimonies from the childcare facility owners. Some were short by tens of thousands, and a few were owed more than a hundred thousand dollars. These are not just numbers on a spreadsheet—these are real people who have devoted their lives to providing care for children, many from low-income families who depend on federal aid administered by DESE so their parents can work. It was infuriating to learn that this crisis dragged on since last December with no resolution. Facility owners have lost their livelihoods, and parents have been left scrambling to find alternative childcare, all because the state failed to act in time.
One of the state representatives attending the hearing suggested an emergency "Plan B"—the idea that the state could find immediate funds to pay the facilities now and settle up once the software issues are fixed. While this is a sound and reasonable idea despite the bureaucratic nightmare it triggers, it should have been proposed and implemented months ago, when there was ample time to work on it. Waiting until facilities are closing their doors and people are losing their jobs is unacceptable. This crisis could have been averted much earlier with proactive leadership.
I have to applaud the childcare facility owners who testified. Despite the enormous financial stress they’ve endured, they maintained respect and decorum throughout the hearing, though many were on the verge of tears. A common theme ran through their stories: when they reached out to DESE for help, they were met with long wait times, dismissive responses, and empty promises that their correct payments would come "soon." But "soon" never arrived, and their financial situations worsened with each passing month.
There are two key lessons I learned from this hearing. First, the situation at DESE was allowed to fester for months without receiving attention. A DESE assistant commissioner admitted she knew the system had a significant problem as early as January. But it wasn’t until the issue was escalated to the legislators that anything was done. I can’t help but wonder why there wasn’t more proactive oversight from the start. Why didn’t our elected officials step in sooner to implement a "Plan B" or hold DESE or the software vendor accountable for the failures? The hearing, while important, is too little too late for many of the childcare providers who have already lost everything.
The second lesson is broader; it speaks to how government operates. Republicans often argue that the government should be run like a business, but this situation shows the flaw in that mindset. In the private sector, if a project runs over budget or a product rollout is delayed, businesses can cut their losses and move on. But when the government delays critical programs, real people suffer. In this case, families have been left without childcare, and hardworking Missourians have lost their livelihoods. The government’s responsibility is to serve the people, not to make a profit, and when it fails to serve the people, the consequences are personal and devastating.
Ultimately, this crisis highlights the need for more diligent oversight. When a legislative committee is tasked with overseeing a department like DESE, its members should take an active role in monitoring that department’s performance. Problems like this don’t happen overnight, and if the committee had been paying closer attention, they could have implemented solutions long before this situation spiraled out of control.
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