A panic over impending funding cuts for Arkansas child care providers and the families who depend on them hasn’t died down, and solutions remain elusive.

Child care providers learned on Sept. 19 that they had less than two weeks to brace for millions of dollars in reimbursement rate cuts to School Readiness Assistance , an income-based voucher program that covers the cost of care for 16,000 Arkansas babies and young children. They were originally supposed to take effect Oct. 1. The uproar over such sudden and drastic changes convinced the Arkansas Department of Education, which oversees the program, to put off the rate cuts for a month, but Nov. 1 is creeping up fast.

On Wednesday, about 80 child care providers, state lawmakers and representatives from the Arkansas Department of Educ

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