HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio — For families struggling to make ends meet and afford child care, a new program in Hamilton County should help provide relief.
It’s called a tri-share program and would reduce child care costs for some families by two thirds. Here's how it works: Businesses participating in the program agree to provide a child care stipend to employees and that money will be matched by the State of Ohio.
Research by Child Care Aware found that the national average price of child care in 2023 was $11,582, with families spending roughly 10% of their annual income on it each year.
“It is now really vying for number one in our budgets, with our rent and our mortgages,” said Vanessa Freytag, CEO of 4C for Children. "Child care continues to be one of the biggest barriers for businesses to recruit new employees and to retain their employees.”
The pilot program is new in Ohio. Hamilton County is one of five Ohio counties selected to pilot this initiative.
4C for Children was chosen based on decades of work to “educate and support the adults—parents, child care providers, preschool teachers, early learning program administrators — who care for young children and prepare them for success in school and life."
The hope is that the program proves successful to “potentially propose a much wider expansion, and to learn what works well for the families, what works well for the child care providers, what works well for the businesses,” Freytag said.
This program focuses on parents of children up to 5 years old — before they’re in kindergarten. It doesn’t matter if the child care is home-based or center-based . Other states like Michigan, North Carolina, and Kansas found success with similar programs that Ohio hopes to duplicate.
“We're trying to stabilize the industry. Open up more spots so that more parents and caregivers can get to work,” said Liz Keating, vice president of government affairs and advocacy at the Cincinnati Regional Chamber.
Keating was tasked by the Cincinnati City Council in February of 2024 to lead a new Child Care Task Force. She said several months in, she moved the task force to the Chamber.
“This allows us to work with businesses and better understand, you know, their need and how we can help their employees from the standpoint of what their barriers are to get to work," said Keating. "It also allows us to work with those in the human services industry, where they're on the front lines, working with these families that are struggling. And those in the child care industry. It also helps us be able to have an impact at the state level and federal level, so it kind of expands our purview to be able to impact all levels that are then going to come down and be able to have a massive impact on the Cincinnati region, City of Cincinnati overall.”
Recently, Keating was in Washington D.C. meeting with the policy leads for U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Katie Britt who wrote bi-partisan legislation to help expand the child care tax credit.
Keating said even if you don’t have children, everything involving child care will impact you.
“If government is investing in child care, opening up the classrooms, you have more paychecks going home," said Keating. "They're now collecting income tax. So every time we can boost pay and get have the workforce stability in the child care industry, you're going to get a big return on investment.”
For businesses that want to be part of the tri-share pilot, here is how it works:
- Must have a site in Hamilton County – and only employees at the site are eligible to participate.
- The company can determine which employees or roles are eligible.
- The company must be willing to fund a child care stipend — there is no set minimum.
- The state funds will match qualifying stipends/employees — there is a cap on available funds per company.
The pilot ends in June 2026. Companies interested in participating can send an email to 4C for Children at: ccbusinesspilot@4cforchildren.org.
