The judge presiding over government shutdown appeals has issued a ruling today that reinstates child care assistance payments for thousands of working, low-income families. Advocates had argued that these payments are essential to keeping child care facilities open and allowing families to be able to go to work.

The ruling reinstates government funding for the basic sliding fee program, which provides variable child care assistance to working families based on their income and ability to pay. The program supported 9,483 families per month, on average in 2010. The shutdown had not disrupted payments through the Minnesota Family Investment Program, which subsidized child care for 9,530 families per month in 2010 who were trying to get off state welfare and maintain steady jobs. The ruling (recommended by special master Kathleen Blatz and made by judge Kathleen Gearin) continued to assert that the basic sliding fee program isn't an essential government service. However, the special master accepted the argument from the Minnesota Department of Human Services that it would be a "functional impossibility" to separate out the federal grant money for the MFIP and the sliding fee child care programs. As a result, the department would either have to fund both programs or neither, the ruling stated. Given the court's earlier ruling that funding for the federally supported MFIP program must continue, the court agreed that the better course would be to fund both programs rather than none at all.