Kelowna parents and child care providers are bracing for provincial funding cuts which come into effect July 1.

"Parents are going to be paying more," said Lynn Burgatt, director of the Kelowna Childcare Society.

The cuts are to British Columbia's Child Care Operating Funding program, which directs money to child care providers.

The rate the government pays licensed group child care providers is dropping….

The cuts amount to $40 a month for a child in full-time day care.

The provincial government is blaming the federal government and its cancellation of the Early Learning and Child Care agreements.

The five-year agreements were reached between the provinces and the former Liberal government and were canceled after only two years when the Conservatives took power.

It replaced them with a $100 per child Universal Childcare Benefit, which goes directly to parents and is taxable.

In March, B.C.'s Minister of State for Child Care Linda Reid sent a letter to child care operators telling them the province's funding was reverting to pre-ELCC levels, which would have reduced funding for infant and toddlers (aged 0 to 35 months) by almost $4 per day.

Last Friday, Reid sent out another letter, saying the infant and toddler amount would only be cut by $2.

"The federal government lectures us continuously on that $100 a month," said Reid, explaining the provincial government's change of heart.

"We wanted very much not to have $80 for an infant space (the size the cut would have been on a monthly basis at the $4 per day cut level) come out of that $100 because after taxes most families will get between $70 and $80."

But at Daycare Connection, a licensed child care centre in Kelowna, fees charged to parents have already gone up $100 to $150, said manager Kim Chernenkoff.

Funding from all levels of government is simply not keeping up with the increased costs her centre is facing.

"We were looking at fee increases already (before the cuts)," she said, noting almost everything has gone up in price, from insurance, to supplies. Daycare Connection also gave its employees a small raise.

"The average pay for a childcare worker in the Okanagan is $12 to $14 an hour," said Chernenkoff.

"It's tough to get people working in the field."

In order to be a licensed child care provider, workers have to take a two year Early Childhood Education program at a college or university.

Parent Linsey Valveriote, a graphic designer with two children at Daycare Connection, understands the centre's need to raise its fees.

"I don't think the day care has a choice," she said. And the need for child care is not a choice either, she added. "Parents hands are tied if you have to work."

She said governments need to do more to pay for day care.

"I think it's short sighted to not put some sort of funding in. These (the children) are the future leaders."

Child care advocates have called on the provincial government to use part of its $3 billion surplus to fund child care. …

Valveriote is not impressed with the buck passing between governments.

"It seems like a lot of bickering," she said. "The bottom line is we need the child care."

There is a shortage of both child care spaces and child care workers in the Okanagan.

A recent study by the Community Action Toward Children's Health coalition, found there are only enough child care spaces for 22 per cent of the region's children aged zero to five years old, while 70 per cent of mothers with children of those ages, are in the workforce.