Grey County Warden Andrea Matrosovs and a county delegation are heading to Ottawa this week for the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, running August 16 to 19. Among their scheduled ministerial meetings is a direct sit-down with the Ministry of Education to press two specific child care asks: more CWELCC-funded spaces for the region and revised income thresholds for fee subsidy eligibility to support middle-income families earning below the local living wage.
For licensed child care operators in Grey County, this advocacy is directly relevant to your operating environment in 2026 and your planning for 2027.
The Space Situation in Grey County
The context behind this advocacy matters. At the beginning of 2025, Grey County lost 129 CWELCC-funded spaces through provincial recalibration. The county sent a letter to the province stating it had the capacity to open more spaces. In November 2025, the province returned 105 CWELCC-funded spaces to the region. By January 1, 2026, all 105 were filled.
Grey County now has 1,973 child care spaces funded under CWELCC. There is an active waitlist of operators in the region wanting to expand. The county is going to Ottawa specifically because that waitlist exists and the provincial space allocation process is the bottleneck preventing those expansions from proceeding.
For operators on that waitlist, the AMO meeting is meaningful because it represents Grey County making the case to the Ministry with the political weight of a formal ministerial delegation. Whether it produces additional allocated spaces, and on what timeline, is uncertain. But the advocacy is grounded in documented local demand and a county administration that has already demonstrated it can fill new spaces immediately upon receiving them.
The Fee Subsidy Threshold Change Has Funding Formula Implications
The second ask Grey County is bringing to the Ministry is a revision to income thresholds for fee subsidy eligibility. Currently, middle-income families earning below the local living wage in Grey County do not qualify for fee subsidy support. The county is asking the province to adjust those thresholds to extend subsidy access to this group.
For operators, this matters in a specific and practical way. Fee subsidy revenue is included in your base fee revenue for CWELCC purposes. Your Actual Base Fee Revenue Offset at year-end reconciliation equals the greater of your actual base fee revenue collected, including both direct parent fees and fee subsidy receipts, and your Expected Base Fee Revenue Offset.
If the fee subsidy income threshold is raised and more families in Grey County qualify for subsidy, more of the fee revenue your centre collects will come through the fee subsidy stream rather than direct parent payments. The total revenue may remain similar, but the composition changes. Operators who track direct parent fees separately from fee subsidy receipts will be better positioned to report accurately under either a revised or unchanged threshold framework.
More substantively, expanded fee subsidy access tends to increase enrollment demand from families who previously could not afford licensed care even at the $22 per day capped rate. For operators with current vacancy, a threshold change that brings more families into the subsidy-eligible range directly addresses the demand side of the vacancy problem that creates recovery risk at reconciliation.
What the 2025 Space Recalibration Means for Affected Operators
The 129 spaces Grey County lost at the beginning of 2025 were not a minor administrative adjustment. Operators who had those spaces removed from their CWELCC allocation experienced a reduction in their Program Cost Allocation for 2025. If your centre was among those affected and your operating costs were structured around a larger allocation, the recalibration created exactly the kind of gap between your cost structure and your funding that the legacy top-up was designed to address.
If you received a legacy top-up in 2025 as a result of this or any other cost structure gap, that top-up has now rolled into your 2026 rolling top-up calculation. Your rolling top-up ratio is determined by your 2025 actual eligible costs relative to your 2025 benchmark allocation. Understanding that ratio and whether it is working in your favour for 2026 is something every Grey County operator who was affected by the 2025 recalibration should know.
Growth Opportunity for Operators on the Expansion Waitlist
If you are a Grey County operator on the waitlist to expand your CWELCC-funded spaces, the growth top-up provision in the April 2026 guideline is directly relevant to your planning.
The growth top-up is available to existing centres adding new licensed spaces in the calendar year and is calculated by applying the CMSM-specific growth multiplier to the benchmark allocation for the new spaces. Knowing your growth top-up amount before you commit to a lease expansion, additional staffing, or capital investment is not optional planning. It is the difference between expansion that is financially sustainable and expansion that creates new cost pressure without adequate funding support.
If Grey County's AMO delegation succeeds in securing additional space allocations and your centre is offered new spaces later this year or in 2027, understanding the full financial picture before you accept them is the right starting point.
What Grey County Operators Should Do Now
The AMO conference advocacy reflects the county's recognition that the current space allocation is insufficient for local demand and that the fee subsidy framework is excluding families who need support. Both of those conditions are already affecting your operating environment.
While the county makes the case in Ottawa, there are concrete steps Grey County operators can take regardless of the outcome.
Run your mid-year reconciliation projection. With five months remaining in 2026, you have enough actual data to project your year-end position. Your actual service days and operating capacity, your actual eligible cost expenses to date, and your actual parent fee revenue collected are the three inputs required. If your projection shows underspending relative to your Program Cost Allocation, you still have time to close the gap.
Understand your rolling top-up position. If your centre received a legacy top-up in 2025, your 2026 rolling top-up was calculated from your 2025 actual costs. Confirming that calculation is accurate and that your 2026 allocation reflects it correctly is worth verifying with your CMSM before year-end.
Model the growth top-up before committing to expansion. If you are on the waitlist for additional spaces and those spaces arrive, run the numbers before you sign anything.
ChildcareFundingIQ gives Grey County operators the tools to do all of this. The platform runs your 2026 allocation step by step using current benchmark rates and Grey County's specific geographic adjustment factor, models growth scenarios, and tracks your eligible costs by GIFI and FIN codes throughout the year.
If you need direct support running a mid-year reconciliation analysis, reviewing your rolling top-up calculation, or modelling the financial implications of expansion, our consulting services provide Grey County operators with operator-side analysis from advisors who understand the CWELCC formula and work exclusively for you.
Sign up free at childcarefundingiq.ca and run your 2026 allocation today.
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Learn More →Sources: Dunn, Scott. "Grey delegation heading to Ottawa for AMO conference." Owen Sound Sun Times, August 13, 2026. https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/local-news/grey-delegation-heading-to-ottawa-for-amo-conference; CK News Today. "Grey County brings local priorities to AMO conference." August 10, 2026. https://cknewstoday.ca/midwestern/news/2026/08/10/grey-county-brings-local-priorities-to-amo-conference