By Scott Andersen
The state Department of Early Learning and its new director, Ross Hunter, have recently proposed a set of rules that will directly increase child care costs in Washington state in 2018, and we want working families to be informed of these potential changes.
Unfortunately, our local legislators and politicians seem to be allowing these changes to occur.
The main concern is a proposed rule that reduces the number of children allowed in existing child care centers. We have been given a number of children that we are allowed to provide care for at our center by our license. However, the Department of Early learning essentially wants to reduce this number for all centers to include teachers in a center’s capacity.
This will have some negative impacts that will directly affect working families. The clear impact will be an increase in child care tuition of around 13 percent to 17 percent a month. All child care centers will need to raise prices to offset the reduction in revenue because fewer children are allowed in each program. Small family-owned centers that families love and feel safe at may be forced to close and large corporate centers will be the main option for child care.
Our center, Grow With Us, has always provided care for children using state funding as we believe that all children should have access to quality child care. However, Early Learning pays us a low reimbursement for this service and this change will force centers including Grow With Us to reduce or potentially eliminate the amount of state-funded families that we can accept at our program in order to take more full-pay customers to continue to operate. This could mean that many child care programs will not be able to accept state-funded families in 2018 if this rule is allowed to pass.
We are presenting our concerns to the Department of Early Learning and state representatives, but we could use your help. Please email Director Ross Hunter at ross.hunter@del.wa.gov or call 360-725-4584 and our Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, at Lillian.Ortiz-Self@leg.wa.gov. Let them know that you do not want this rule to take effect and you do not want to see a large increase in child care costs.
Families receiving state funding, please let them know you do not want your care terminated from this rule and let them know you need your child care. Thank you for your assistance as we are all in this together.
Scott Andersen is vice president of Grow With Us Child Care in Edmonds.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
