Arizona child care hit hard by state budget cuts

In cash-strapped Arizona this week, a program that provides monthly subsidies of about $350 to help working parents pay for child care turned away their 10,000 child. Those 10,000 children are now on a waiting list, but Bruce Liggett, executive director of the Arizona Child Care Assocation, says those kids will probably never get off that list. Arizona’s budget woes are well documented: The Pew Center said this month that a massive deficit combined with a high foreclosure rate have given Arizona the dubious distinction of being the state with the second-worst fiscal woes in the nation. (Only California is worse off, says Pew.) We also talk to Sandra Hanner, director of A Kiddie’s Kingdom daycare in Phoenix. She says her daycare is feeling the budget cuts acutely, and that she might have to start laying off staff.