Day cares’ pocketed wait fees decried
SEATTLE — Even before Tricia Schalekamp knew the baby growing inside her was a boy, she embarked on the search for child care with urgency and intensity. She visited two dozen centers in the Seattle area, created spreadsheets with notes and paid at least $500 in nonrefundable waiting list fees. In the end, she was not offered a coveted spot at most of the places advertising child care services for kids age 5 and younger. And now, a decade later, Schalekamp doesn’t expect to see that money again. With demand for highquality preschools seemingly insatiable yet supply starkly limited in America’s most expensive cities, that money-back-not-guaranteed caveat is becoming routine and exacerbating the already grueling search for day care services for many working parents. Those who can afford care costing an average of about $2,000 a month per child rarely quibble over a $100 fee here and there. Many eventually get their kids into a child care program, while others make do by patching up nanny hours, hiring live-in au pairs and relying on family members. Yet the situation illustrates just how much power U.S. child care centers currently wield, said Elise Gould, an economist studying child care policy at the Washington, D.C.based Economic Policy Institute. “They can have hundreds of people on their waiting list but never give them anything?” Gould said. “That’s a screwy incentive system.” Schalekamp remembers crying after a day care tour thinking she would never find a place for her child, now a third-grader. She counts herself lucky that she eventually found care but remains peeved by one $200 fee in particular. “There’s no chance of getting in, but why didn’t they tell me that? There’s zero transparency,” said Schalekamp, 44, who works in product development and went on to have a second son, now 6. A spokeswoman with the Washington state attorney general’s office said she was unaware of any such issues being reported but that anyone feeling defrauded should file a complaint. In the other worlds of coveted waitlists, neither national college nor restaurant industry leaders reported such fees as being common practice in their fields. The Better Business Bureau said it doesn’t keep data specific to waiting list complaints. Many child care centers already price out a large population of families with tuition prices rivaling that of elite universities. So for those searching in this expensive market, the fees are largely accepted and generally considered a deposit for future enrollment, though services are never guaranteed. Day care administrators say they’re merely weeding out unserious applicants, knowing parents try to get on as many lists as possible to secure even one spot. They also say the money in their low-profit, low-wage business helps manage the hours it takes to answer questions, give tours and process enrollment paperwork. The driving force behind the child care supply problem is the lack of workers. For years, the child care and preschool industry has been trying to address its high turnover rate that nears 50 percent. But even increasing wages nationally by 13 percent between 2014 and 2017 — to a median $22,290 annually — has not stopped the loss of talent. It’s a tough, labor-intensive job to get people to do for such low wages, so the pool of U.S. child care workers in the same period lost 3.5 percent of its workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.