New department to oversee childcare background checks, billions in grants

By Sean Reed | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – The new state Department of Early Childhood is set to begin operating in full as of July 1. The department’s allocations in the coming year’s state budget totaled $4.42 billion, a 3.6% increase in state spend compared to the services the state taxpayer was paying under other agencies.

In a hearing on the department’s budget earlier this year, IDEC Secretary Teresa Ramos told state lawmakers the goal of the new department is to bring new efficiencies and oversight in the state’s spending on early childhood programs.

“Right now we are taking over programs from three agencies and building infrastructure where there just hasn’t been. We need to build this infrastructure in order to ensure that the billions of dollars in programmatic funding we are dedicating to early childhood is used well and effectively,” Ramos said in the March hearing.

For fiscal year 2026, the Department of Children and Family Services was appropriated $2.46 billion, and in the new budget, DCFS is to receive $2.51 billion. When accounting for a transfer in services to the new department, DCFS saw a roughly $30.4 million increase in funding year-over-year.

Within the Illinois Department of Human Services budget, the two line items taken over by the new department add up to a $3.5 million deduction from the current year’s allocation.

Despite the offloading of responsibility, the agency’s full budget decreased by only $2.79 million, representing a technical increase when accounting for the shift in oversight.

One of the biggest items to move into the new department’s domain comes from the State Board of Education, the early childhood block grant program.

Ramos also told lawmakers the shift in program oversight may not result in an apples-to-apples cost shift, especially in the near-term.

“We’re transitioning for example $2 billion in program programs from DHS over to this department, so we can make sure that those programs have our full attention and are delivering services in a way that is effective and efficient,” Ramos said.

Among the many legislative initiatives the department brought to the General Assembly this season are oversights on childcare in the state.

One bill awaiting signing from the governor, backed by Rep. Joyce Mason, D-Gurnee, will put criminal background checks of childcare providers under the purview of the department, which is currently done by DCFS.

The shift in background checks as a sole responsibility of the department could be impactful, especially as childcare fraud has been a talking point and target of Republican lawmakers at many levels of government.

U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., recently passed the “Stop Childcare Scams Act” through the U.S. House in response to fraud within the federal Childcare and Development Block Grant program, citing a 2024 case involving the owner of several Chicago childcare centers who was sentenced to prison after stealing more than $3 million in taxpayer funds.