Child-care providers rail against cash cuts
The Daily News - Kamloops
23 Jan 2007
By: Catherine Litt

Quality child care is being pushed further out of reach of parents, say Kamloops day-care operators.

The cause, they say, are provincial funding cuts, which take effect in July and will mean a $2-$4 per child drop in funding for licensed child-care providers.

"Basically what's happening is they're rolling our core funding back to 2005 levels, which has a huge impact," said Marian Hardy, executive director of Cariboo Child Care Society, the non-profit day care at Thompson Rivers University.

"For our facility, it equates to an approximate loss of $39,000. So we're going to have to find that money somewhere."

The question is where.

On Wednesday, Hardy and fellow child-care providers from across the city will meet at TRU to talk about the impending cuts and how they'll manage the financial fallout.

There are about 140 licensed child-care facilities in Kamloops, all of which are affected by the cuts announced Jan. 5 by B.C.'s Minister of State for Child Care, Linda Reid. ..

But child-care operators say it's not realistic to expect parents will cover the funding cuts with their $100 benefit.

Parents, however, may end up paying the bill in the end, as day-care operators consider fee increases to help offset the cuts.

"One of the reasons of this meeting is to get the child-care community together to ensure that everyone is fully aware of the implications of these cuts and to discuss what can be done," said Hardy of Wednesday night's meeting at TRU.

And there is another big concern within the industry -- a separate round of funding cuts to the Child Care Resource and Referral Program, which supports resource centres such as the YMCA's Child Resource Registry Office on Hugh Allen Drive.

The office gets $300,000 through the program to pay for four staff and the related overhead costs of operating a referral service with outreach and training programs for child-care providers and parents.

It's a barebones operation already, says executive director Mary-Ellen Everatt, and one that will have to be closed once a 77 per cent funding cut is fully phased in by next October.

Everatt wonders why the funding would be cut when a report done last year showed that the program helped 59 per cent more families.

"It's sad that we would end," she said.

"When you think about it, it's $9 million they're cutting out of the budget in B.C.

Aren't children worth $9 million?"