Latest news with #ADayWithoutChildCare
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Child care advocates organize stoppage to send message for funding
Children play at The Growing Tree child care center in New Glarus. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner) For more than two years Wisconsin child care providers have been warning that failing to provide ongoing support will mean their fees will go up and their numbers shrink drastically. Starting Tuesday, some providers will try to give lawmakers and the public a taste of what that could look like — by staging a strike. Their goal is to persuade Republican leaders on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee to commit to including in the state budget a significant child care support program. Gov. Tony Evers' proposed $480 million child care measure was among more than 600 items the committee removed on Thursday, May 8, from the draft budget Evers proposed for 2025-27. The motion to remove the items passed 12-3 with only Republican votes. 'We are demanding that the Joint Finance Committee guarantees they will put $480 million of state dollars back into the budget' for child care support, Corrine Hendrickson, a New Glarus child care provider and advocate, told the Wisconsin Examiner Monday. Until they get such a guarantee, some providers have decided to close their doors, Hendrickson said. Providers who intend to shut down their operations on Tuesday will go to the state Capitol for a press conference organized by Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN), which Hendrickson cofounded. They plan to remain at the Capitol at least through the rest of this week, she said. 'The goal is that Republicans and Democrats will stop by and talk to us about our concerns,' Hendrickson said. She added she was hoping for 'a real conversation' about measures that child care providers favor as well as proffered solutions that they oppose — 'since they keep leaving us out of these conversations.' Hendrickson said Monday afternoon that about 100 participants — providers, child care workers and parents in support of their actions — were expected at the Capitol Tuesday. She said there was not a count yet of how many child care centers might close. Organizers have established a donation portal with Community Change Action to raise funds that will be used to offset lost wages for child care workers and providers who take part in the walkout, Hendrickson said. The action planned to start Tuesday follows events across Wisconsin Monday for 'A Day Without Child Care' —a national campaign to draw attention to the need for child care programs and their need for stronger financial resources. At a rally Monday morning in New Glarus, parents, state officials both elected and appointed, education leaders, local economic boosters and child care providers took turns championing the need for a state investment that would strengthen child care providers. 'Whether you're a parent, an employer, an educator or a policy advisor, child care affects each and every one of us and it touches our future as well,' Cortney Barry, director of the New Glarus Chamber of Commerce, said at the rally. 'The current system is not working, especially in small communities like ours. It's just stretched too thin. It's fragile, and it's scary to think just how close we are to a true crisis.' Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski said business leaders she met with in central Wisconsin last week told her that child care was a pressing need for them to be able to hire locally rather than going out of state, and that they could not find workers 'not because people don't want to work for [them] — they can't find a place to send their kids.' Democratic lawmakers and parents have since 2023 pushed to continue the monthly Child Care Counts support program that Wisconsin began with the help of federal money during the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds bolstered child care providers' revenues so they could raise wages without charging parents more for care. 'We lost 6,000 [child care] programs between 2010 and 2019,' Hendrickson said at the New Glarus rally. 'You know what stopped [the decline]? COVID — when we started getting money. All of the sudden we had more programs open at the end of the year than we had at the beginning of the year. It worked.' A proposal to continue Child Care Counts with state funds was stripped from Evers' 2023-25 budget, and the Legislature's Republican majority repeatedly rejected attempts to restore the funding. The Evers administration was able to continue a reduced support program, but that will end with the final payment to child care centers early this summer. That has escalated a campaign to keep the program going with state funds. In a state survey released in April 25% or more providers said they might close without continued support at the level Child Care Counts provided. Hendrickson said at the New Glarus rally 54% of providers in Green County in the survey expected to close after the state funding program ends. Half of providers will have to raise tuition, she said — including her family child care business, which cares for eight children. Even with fee increases totaling $50 a week phased in over the months of August and September to replace lost Child Care Counts revenue and higher expenses, 'I will still be taking a pay cut,' she added. Brooke Legler, the other WECAN cofounder and operator of The Growing Tree child care center in New Glarus, said shutting down to protest starting Tuesday is 'our last effort — it's the only thing we have as a community, as a profession, that we can say, like, 'No, I'm not going to subsidize the economy off of my pay, off of the teachers that work there.'' Other child care providers who took part in Monday's Day Without Child Care campaign across the state said they cannot shut down in protest this week, but they support providers who choose to do so. In Waupaca, Tracy Jensen, director of Sunny Day Child Care, used the day as a teach-in for parents. 'We were raising awareness about the true cost of child care and how important it is to have child care in our community,' Jensen told the Wisconsin Examiner. About 75 parents came through the center Monday, and Jensen said she plans to continue the opportunities for more such parent education through the week. Sunny Day is the largest center in Waupaca County, Jensen said, with a license for 292 children at one time. There are 350 families with children enrolled currently, and a waiting list of 70 families, she said. Jensen said that given the center's size it won't take part in the organized shut down. She said she told employees that if they want to go to Madison Tuesday to voice their concerns they can do so, and she has tried to organize staffing to make that possible. Tricia Peterson directs Future All Stars Academy in Juneau. On Monday she closed the center for a day and took 11 employees to an event in Waunakee, where providers, staff and parents rallied. Peterson won't close Future All Stars for the walkout starting Tuesday, however. 'I'm not in a position right now to do that,' she said, 'But I will say I will do everything I can in support of that.' The center's long-term future will depend on the state budget, however. 'I'm one of those centers that if funding doesn't come forward in June, we'll have to close,' Peterson said. She's already notified parents about that possibility. 'They understood where we were coming from,' Peterson said. 'We didn't have one parent complain.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bemidji area providers show support for 'Day Without Child Care'
Mar. 4—BEMIDJI — Child care providers across Minnesota stood in solidarity on Monday as they sought bipartisan support and solutions for issues plaguing the child care industry. Coined "A Day Without Child Care," many providers closed up shop for the day with an overarching goal to address child care access, provider compensation and affordability. Providers in the Bemidji area shared their support during a press conference at Northwest Technical College. "The purpose of 'A Day Without Child Care' is to highlight the incredible importance of child care to our communities and to organize for change," said Pine Pals Director Lydia Pietruszewski. "We all have the same goal: affordable and accessible, high-quality child care for families and wages for teachers and providers that allow them to stay in child care." Pietruszewski created a survey sent to roughly 80 providers in Bemidji and the surrounding area asking about the nature of the care they provide as well as the businesses their respective families worked for. Given a relatively short turnaround time, she received 32 responses. "The families at these providers work at 136 different businesses. If those child care providers disappeared and no longer provided care, it's not just children and families that would be affected. It's all of us," she added. "If 32 providers have families working at 136 different businesses, we can assume that 80 providers have families working at a few hundred different businesses." Several providers and families spoke on their own experiences accessing child care and the multifaceted effects when access is limited. Bemidji Brewing owner Tina Kaney noted the difficulty of running a business while wrangling her most precious cargo. "When you are the person with whom the buck stops, you can not easily call in or put off your work. Staff need answers and direction. My co-founders and I have all navigated numerous workdays and meetings with our children in tow. We are fortunate to have that flexibility, but now that our kids are mobile and climbers, a brewery is not really an option for 'Take Your Kid to Work Day,' " Kaney said lightheartedly. "Without reliable child care, we cannot move our company forward in a way that responds quickly to the ever-changing business landscape," she added. Megan Steigauf, chief human resources officer for Sanford Health, mentioned an array of issues tied to the hiring process that child care accessibility has exacerbated. "We are hearing an increased number of employees not able to accept job offers that we make to them because they can't find child care," she said. "Our frontline leaders hear on the daily that people can't come to work that day due to child care or they can't even return from a leave due to no backup child care being available." With a secured spot at Pine Pals for her son, Rebecca Katz praised the care that the family receives while pointing to the expense tied to that care. "We make a lot of sacrifices to pay for our child care. Even though we are both well-paid professionals — we don't buy extras, we use coupons and we follow a strict budget — our child care costs for only one child is roughly $16,000 per year," she said. "That's 18 to 20% of our take-home pay. "We understand that high-quality child care is expensive and it probably should be even more so that teachers can earn living wages, but it's impossible for many other parents to comfortably shoulder the cost," she added. In an attempt to defray costs, the Minnesota Legislature has committed to the Great Start Affordability Scholarship Program, which would place a cap on child care costs so that no family would have to pay more than 7% of their annual income to access quality child care. This percentage was determined by analyzing the necessary expenses that families face with young children and what would be a "reasonable" amount for those families to spend. Previous proposals to the Legislature have targeted a greater lack of availability of care slots for infants and toddlers. Efforts have included changing current age categories for toddlers from 12 to 24 months, to 12 to 18 months. The preschooler age category would adjust from 24 months to 5 years, to 18 months to 4 years. School-aged children would be defined as those ages 4 to 11 rather than 5 to 11. These changes aimed to free up care slots for these age groups. Pietruszewski also shared a letter of support from House 2A Rep. Bidal Duran, which read: "I'm writing to express my strong support for day care providers across Minnesota and to highlight the invaluable role they play in our communities. High-quality child care is a cornerstone of a thriving economy and a bright future for our state — providing children with nurturing environments that foster learning, social development and confidence. "By supporting day cares, we invest in Minnesota's future, strengthening families, empowering businesses and enriching our communities." Pietruszewski emphasized the bipartisan nature of child care, adding: "It affects us all no matter how we voted. It's not a red issue or a blue issue. It's a purple issue." Monday's press conference provided additional opportunities to reflect on progress already made in the Bemidji area regarding child care access as local stakeholders commit to further improvements. One such recent development included the reimagination of the Sanford Health Lake Region Office as Pine Pals Nest, which opened its doors in fall 2024. Pine Pals Nest offers open slots to Sanford Health employees before being offered to the community at large. "We hope to continue to alleviate the child care problem in our community and feel it's our duty as the largest employer to help do so," Steigauf left off, "but it takes all of us."
