EXCERPT FROM: Missoulian
By Jennifer McKee
HELENA - If the state goes ahead with plans to cancel a $230,000 increase in child care subsidies next year, kids from poorer working families will be priced out of some child care centers and preschools, providers say.
"I think it will harm the state," says Ann Lynch, owner of Creative Horizons, a child care center and preschool in Helena. "It's devastating for the families and I don't think it's fair."
The subsidies are the Best Beginnings Scholarship Program, which pays a portion of qualifying families' child care bills.
The program doesn't pay the whole cost of child care. Parents must make up the difference between what the state gives them and what providers actually charge. For some, that can be up to $100 or more a month.
Lynch says she already has "a lot of turnover" when the parents of children in the scholarship program get their first bill from her. A lot of them drop out, unable to pay the cost, she says.
The $230,000 would fund a 2 percent increase in the subsidy paid to providers. Schweitzer administration officials have recommended canceling the increase as part of spending cuts to keep the state budget in balance.
Providers like Lynch says the cost of providing child care increases each year. Best Beginnings already doesn't cover the total cost, meaning some child care centers either won't take scholarship children or would have to raise the rates for families who don't have a subsidy.
Kelly Rosenleaf of Childcare Resources in Missoula says the difficult economy has already forced some parents to pull their kids out of child care, placing them in "informal care" with neighbors or friends.