Sky Schaudt/KJZZ

Mary Jo Pitzl in KJZZ's studio in 2018.

Since February 2018, $56 million in potential federal child care funding has been sitting idle.

Last session, Arizona lawmakers failed to allocate it and so failed to put the funds toward helping low-income families pay for child care.

But now that money will be put to use. State lawmakers agreed to spend the funds to increase the subsidies paid to child-care providers for the first time in nearly two decades and get people off of a long waitlist to access child care services.

Mary Jo Pitzl has been covering this for the Arizona Republic and joined The Show to talk about the move.

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