Minnesota child care providers face Jan. 9 deadline or lose funding

Minnesota officials have until next week to turn over information on child care providers and parents receiving federal funds or risk losing federal child care funding, according to a notice sent to providers.

Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) told child care providers in an email Friday that information about funding recipients has to be sent to the federal government by Jan. 9, The Associated Press reported.

The notification came after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Tuesday it will freeze all child care payments to Minnesota following fraud allegations involving some child care centers.

“We recognize the alarm and questions this has raised,” DCYF said in the email. “We found out about the freezing of funds at the same time everyone else did on social media.”

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The DCYF instructed providers and families relying on the frozen funds to continue the program’s “licensing and certification requirements and practices as usual.” The email does not say if recipients need to take any action or provide any information.

The state agency said it “did not receive a formal communication from the federal government until late Tuesday night,” after the DHS announced it would freeze all child care payments to Minnesota.

All states must submit additional verification before receiving more child care funding.

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On Friday, the DCYF said the state Office of Inspector General conducted on-site compliance checks this week at nine child care centers referenced in a viral video by independent journalist Nick Shirley, who was accusing them of committing fraud.

In his video, Shirley visited several Minnesota child care facilities, including the Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis, which he said appeared inactive despite receiving state child care assistance funds.

Investigators found the centers operating “as expected,” according to DYCF, and children were present at all sites except for one, which it said was not yet open for families at the time of the visit.

The department said it has ongoing investigations at four of the centers, and has 55 open investigations involving providers receiving funding through the Child Care Assistance Program.

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At a news conference Monday, Minnesota DCYF Commissioner Tikki Brown said prior inspections of the centers did not uncover fraud, noting that regulators are conducting unannounced visits in response to concerns raised by the video.

“We are aware of a video that’s being circulated that has gained local and national attention about childcare centers in Minnesota,” Brown said. “While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner, Louis Casiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report.