House Minority Leader Pro Tempore Kayla Young said Monday she supported Gov. Jim Justice’s child care tax credit, but said the credit would not be immediately helpful to working families. Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

CHARLESTON — The child care tax credit first proposed by Gov. Jim Justice during the regular legislative session earlier this year is now one day closer to reality after the House of Delegates passed it, but a small group of Republican lawmakers questioned the need.

The House passed House Bill 226, providing for a child and dependent care credit against the personal income tax, in an 86-5 vote Monday afternoon.

The bill will now be considered by the state Senate today, where their version of the bill, Senate Bill 2026, is on third reading after being laid over one day.

HB 226, if passed, will provide a credit against the personal income tax in the amount of 50% of the allowable federal child and dependent care credit for those already receiving the federal tax credit, effective retroactively to Jan. 1. The credit could return up to $4.2 million to eligible taxpayers according to a fiscal note from the state Department of Revenue.

“We’re mirroring the image of the federal program…to help parents be able to do child care along the same lines of the federal guidelines,” said House Finance Committee Chairman Vernon Criss, R-Wood, when explaining the bill Monday afternoon on the House floor.

Del. Elias Coop-Gonzalez opposed a bill Monday to provide a child care tax credit, saying it would benefit working families at the expense of families where one parent stays at home. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

Approximately 16,000 West Virginia families receive the federal child care tax credit, which amounts to $454 per family per month. With the passage of HB 226, the state child care tax credit would only provide those families an additional $225 tax credit per month. The maximum tax credit benefit for a family with one eligible child could be nearly $1,500 per year.

According to a recent report from the Department of Human Services, there are 1,391 licensed child care providers in the state, with an average monthly cost of $672 per month per child. Another report from the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce found that 24 counties have less than 250 licensed early childhood education slots, with 12 counties having less than 100 slots. There are more than 20,000 child care slots needed in the state.

HB 226 had bipartisan support. House Minority Leader Pro Tempore Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, is part of a House task force working on addressing the need for affordable and available child care. She voted for HB 226, but said more work is needed on the issue.

“I’m really excited about this bill, but I don’t think it goes far enough,” Young said. “It’s a great credit. I’m excited to help it, but it helps after the fact. It’s not going to help with access to child care. It’s going to help folks who can already find it and already afford it…If you don’t know it, lots of child care centers have closed. We need to do a whole lot more with child care.”

However, the bill was opposed by five House members: Del. Geoff Foster, R-Putnam; Del. Laura Kimble, R-Harrison; Del. Todd Longanacre, R-Greenbrier; Del. Henry Dillon, R-Wayne; and Del. Elias Coop-Gonzalez, R-Randolph.

Both Coop-Gonzalez and Dillion said HB 226 could create a scenario of unequal treatment under the law between families with working parents and families where one parent is home caring for and providing education for their children. They also said the bill could incentivize women to enter the workforce.

“I’m just afraid with this bill it could be incentivizing one lifestyle over another,” Coop-Gonzalez said. “I certainly don’t want to put people who are wanting to have traditional families at a disadvantage.”

“We might be in a situation where we are incentivizing mothers into leaving their homes and go enter the workforce, when otherwise on their own…without that government coercion in their lives they might not make that decision,” said Dillon, a public school teacher whose wife cares for their five children at home.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, pointed to the state’s low workforce participation rate, which is 49th in the country, as one of the reasons for HB 226.

“You know what incentivizes mothers entering the workforce? Having to pay rent, having to pay bills, having to pay groceries, and having to take care of a child,” said Pushkin, chairman of the state Democratic Party. “We have the lowest workforce participation rates in the entire country here in West Virginia. This is the very least we can do to address (child care), and this doesn’t even scratch the surface.”

Dillon pushed back, pointing to dictatorships – such as North Korea and China – with high workforce participation rates. Dillion said it should be the choice of West Virginians to not enter the workforce.

“They chose what they wanted to do with their lives. They chose whether to enter a job application somewhere or stay at home with their kids,” Dillon said. “If I’m going to err today, I’m going to err on the side of freedom.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com