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Sue Powers of Mapleton is an early education and whole family consultant to Maine Head Start and child care programs through Maine Community Action Partnership.
As someone who has spent my entire career working with child care and early education programs in Aroostook County, there is nothing I’m more passionate about than supporting our youngest children, their working parents and the amazing early educators who do this critical work. Child care providers are the linchpin to all other workforces, yet it’s an industry still in crisis. Too many parents cannot find affordable care. Child care programs cannot hire and retain staff. Everyone suffers: the children and their families, child care programs and our regional and state economies.
First and foremost, policymakers in Augusta should stand by the provisions they supported last year that increased funding in the child care subsidy program by expanding eligibility from 85 percent to 125 percent of state median income, thus allowing more families access; increased wage stipends to provider on a tiered system; and created child care scholarships for child care providers’ own children. All of these changes were viewed then, and remain today, critical to the viability of our child care system. It is important for legislators to reject the administration’s supplemental budget proposal to delay and change these programs.
The Legislature made these changes to help us recruit, maintain and grow the early child care workforce. Now is not the time to reverse course or slow down progress.
In addition to rejecting these supplemental budget proposals, the Legislature should approve Senate President Troy Jackson’s bill, LD 2199, which proposes to fill two gaps in systems that can make or break the operation of a child care program. In addition, these initiatives may impact the willingness of a child care provider to accept payments from the child care subsidy program, and thus expand child care options in communities across Maine.
Currently, providers have to weigh their ability to accept families on subsidy because they will not always be reimbursed for a full week of care. Current program rules base reimbursement on attendance, not enrollment. This is different than when a provider accepts a family paying privately, who pays based on their child’s enrollment, regardless of whether or not the child is in the program every day. This allows the provider to know what their revenues are so they can accurately plan for personnel and other operational expenses.
The state does not pay our school teachers based on how many children are in their class on any given day. Why are we paying our early care and education teachers using this method?
Currently, providers who accept subsidy payments find themselves losing thousands of dollars each year. Aroostook County child care providers recently accessed annual losses to be between $40,000 and $90,000 based on the size of their child care operation. This is a significant amount of revenue and can quickly put a child care program at risk of not remaining open.
LD 2199 also proposes establishing an emergency fund with technical assistance for child care programs in need. Child care providers operate on the edge of financial stability each week, month and year. It is a daily balancing act to break even and be able to pay staff, bills and essentials for operating a safe program for young children. A leaky roof, furnace malfunction or clogged toilet may be just enough to push a provider over the edge with no hope of recovering financially. If there were funds for these sudden and unexpected emergencies, it may make the difference between a provider staying viable or closing. Closing would only displace and disrupt families, employers and communities.
In addition to accessing emergency funds to allow a provider to stay operational, providing technical assistance will help more providers plan and prepare, and hopefully mitigate emergency events in the future. Investing in this emergency preparedness technical assistance is investing in core programs for our children, families, employers and communities.
If child care fails, parents cannot work and businesses cannot stay open. Support of our child care system is critical to the economic stability of our communities both today and into the future.
