Wisconsin Department
of Children and Families - Division
of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Child Care Subsidy Administration
Wisconsin Shares Handbook
Wisconsin Shares subsidy for ongoing authorizations and registration fees for future months are loaded to the parent’s EBT card the evening of the last day of the month. When an authorization begins in the current month or a past month, the funds are usually loaded to the EBT card the night that the agency worker writes the authorization. Registration fee funds will also load overnight when the fee is entered for the current month or a past month.
Subsidy
funds and registration fees are available for use up to 90 calendar days
from the date the funds were loaded to the parent’s EBT Card. Any amount
not expended by the 90th day will be returned to the state. When a parent
makes a payment to a provider the funds are deducted from the parent’s
subsidy balance in a last-in/first-out system.
| Example: Ricardo has an authorization for March 1 – June 12 for his child, Zeus. His EBT card is loaded with $300 in subsidy funds on March 1. He does not pay any funds to the provider in March. An additional $300 for April is loaded to his card on April 1. If Ricardo only pays $300 to his provider in April, these would be the April funds. He would need to pay more than $300 to access the March funds. He must use the March funds before May 29 or any remaining March funds will age off the card. If May benefits are loaded to the card before he spends the March funds, he would need to pay both the May funds and March funds to avoid losing his March funds. |
Subsidy funds can be used to pay the entire provider bill for the current month or a past month. Use of subsidy funds is not limited to attendance. Subsidy funds cannot be paid to a provider and banked to apply for future months. If a provider needs to return funds, see Appendix IX – Returning Funds. Subsidy payments can only be applied to the child with the authorization to that provider.
This section last updated 12/1/2023