Financal Crunch Making Child Care More Difficult for Some Parents

Like most parents juggling child care costs in the current economic climate, Brenda Bunton of West Lafayette keeps a careful budget.

She spends roughly $300 a week to send her two sons to a branch of Tippecanoe County Child Care, which offers sliding scale fees adjusted for the income of families needing day care.

"With (the cost of) everything going up, like gas and milk, you just keep budgeting it in and doing what you can," Bunton said.

Tippecanoe County Child Care, Inc. provides care for about 300 children daily, Executive Director Marilyn Redmon said.

The mission, she added, is to provide affordable day care and the centers are getting some help from a state program offering tax credits in exchange for donations.

Redmon said the center was just awarded more than $4,000 in credits from the Neighborhood Assistance Program. And they could be eligible for more if the first round of credits go quickly.

Donors who give at least $100 to TCCC can claim half the amount toward any state income tax due at the end of the year. Also, 100 percent of the amount donated can be included in itemized deductions on the person's federal taxes.

The donations help support the sliding fee scale at the center, which is participating agency ofthe United Way.

"I know people don't give in order to get something, but it is an incentive," Redmon said. "It's nice to be able to do something for the donors."

The demand is rising for more affordable child care, as families face cost increases across the board, Redmon said. Many parents struggle over the decision of giving up one income by staying home to provide care or continuing work but absorbing child care costs.

"Child care is a huge expense in a person's personal budget," Redmon said.

In 2007, the average fees paid for an infant to use a full-time child care center in Indiana was $9,005 for the year, or $750 per month, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

Full-time center care for a 4-year-old in Indiana cost on average $7,001 last year, or $583 monthly, according to the same statistics.

In Indiana last year, child care expenses accounted for roughly 13 percent of a married-couple's family income. For a single-parent, female-headed family, the expenses swallowed 42 percent of the median income.

Misti Woods of Shadeland has stayed at home for the past five years raising three children.

The family sometimes struggles to cover all the household expenses with just her husband's income and she works some night nursing shifts, usually about once a week, to help out.

"It is so hard to make it that a lot of stay-at-home moms I know are doing something additional to try and make it," Woods said, adding that she's also volunteered to watch a few additional children to bring in a little extra money.

A creative option some parents are turning to locally is a baby-sitting co-op. Twenty parents from the Greater Lafayette Area Moms networking group have teamed up to offer occasional, free baby-sitting assistance.

Sunayana Ferrer of West Lafayette, one of the group's coordinators, said the co-op allows members to build up points from watching other members' children and then redeem the points for a free sitter when they need it.

Full text available at Journal & Courier.