EXCERPT FROM: KOMU
By Arika Sampson
COLUMBIA - Missouri's latest budget cuts have trickled down to child care, taking $750,000 from Missouri Child Care Resource and Referral Network and causing it to consolidate eight agencies into four.
The Mid-Missouri Child Care Resource and Referral Network said the new budget cut will force the agency to cover 47 counties instead of the 22 it currently serves. Director Joanne Nelson said the budget cuts will also affect the cost of training it supplies to local child care centers. "Basically our training budget has been cut in half so now we're going to have to do some creative thinking trying to get trainings that are affordable" said director," said Nelson. The current cost for basic training is $2.50 and Nelson said that fee will increase to $4.00. Nelson said it will be difficult for child care centers with large staff to cover the new cost. By law, a licensed child care center must ensure its employees complete 12 hours of training each year. Sue Menias is the co-owner of Turn the Page Child Development Center. She doesn't expect the change in training cost to affect her because she budgets in-house training from the dues parents pay for child care. Menias said she also can avoid some training costs because some of her staff is still in school. "We have a lot of staff that is in college, so they get a lot of their continuing ed through college credits," said Menias.