As the Iowa House works on several legislative issues, one important aspect that they’ve tackled concerns child care.

District 20 Representative Ray Sorensen calls House File 302 a detour when it comes to child care assistance. The House passed the bill 94-0 on February 10. Sorensen says the bill will allow parents to take job promotions without the fear of losing all their child care assistance immediately.

“This bill creates an off-ramp instead of a cliff from child care assistance programs, so parents can continue to grow in their career without losing their child care assistance entirely. There would be parents that would refuse a raise at their job because if they took it, there was this cliff effect where they’d lose all their assistance. Instead, we stair-stepped it or an off-ramp so they can take that raise, take a little bit of a deduction in child-care assistance and as you continue to earn raises and get more, it stair-steps down rather than that cliff effect.”

Sorensen adds that this bill is one of six that the House had passed concerning child care availability in the state.