Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka is letting child care providers know that the checks will soon be in the mail.
Topinka says she has directed her staff to go ahead and process more than 13 thousand payments totaling nearly $9 Million dollars to providers waiting for their reimbursement. The state's Child Care Assistance Fund recently ran out of money but Topinka says lawmakers were able to shift funding from another source to make it through the end of the fiscal year. Before the legislation was passed this month, more than 40,000 child care providers were informed that they would not receive another payment until the new fiscal year begins on July 1st. Topinka warns these aren't the only unpaid bills sitting on her desk. She says the total bill backlog for the state is about eight and a half billion dollars.