Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Demand high for child care aid
Fayetteville program praised; providers face staffing, space issues
FAYETTEVILLE — Child care providers welcome the city’s plan to pay the cost of care for qualifying families, but warn they already face challenges with staff and space.
The city is using $2 million from its $17.9 million share of American Rescue Plan money to cover a year’s worth of child care costs for eligible families. Applicants must live, work or go to school in the city and meet certain income level requirements.
The City Council created the program in December with $500,000, but quickly realized more money would be necessary. So far the city has received more than 100 applications and about 200 more requests for applications.
Of 107 applications submitted, 70 are in the process of approval, and another 17 are pending further review because of missing paperwork, said Yolanda Fields, the city’s community resources director. Twenty did not meet the criteria for eligibility, she said.
Households earning up to 80% of the median family income in the city as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are eligible. For instance, a family of four with an annual income of up to $66,950 would qualify.
The average dollar amount awarded per application is $ 12,000, or about $ 1,000 a month. If all 87 eligible applications are approved, the total would add up to more than $ 1 million, providing care to 110 children, Fields said.
The city is still accepting applications.
Fields said the high demand for the program fell in line with her expectation.
“I have been hearing for a long time, from individuals in the community and in meetings, that the huge challenge for a lot of our families with
children and single moms is child care, because it is so expensive,” she said. “Trying to get back to work, or get training to get a better job — a lot of it is they don’t have the money for child care.”
Payments cover a year of child care in monthly installments made in the form of vouchers to licensed child care providers. Vouchers started going out to providers last week. So far 17 providers are participating in the program.
HIGH DEMAND FOR CARE
Kirsty’s Place Child Care on Wedington Drive is licensed to care for 147 children but is caring for 99 because of staffing limitations and to keep classroom sizes manageable, said Harmony Benedict, co-director. There’s a waiting list for about 20 more children, she said. The business has about 35 employees.
Kirsty’s Place benefited from other forms of aid during the pandemic. A grant administered through the state using American Rescue Plan money enabled the business to expand its space, adding four classrooms, and to raise its capacity from 99 to 147.
Employees have to go through extensive background checks and meet several regulatory requirements. The employees Benedict has hired recently often have never worked with children before, she said.
The end of another form of aid also is presenting challenges for child care providers and parents. The federal pandemic- era essential worker child care assistance program folded at the end of last year, leaving many parents scrambling to find an affordable child care option, Benedict said. The program covered the cost of child care for certain essential workers in health care, education and other professions.
Demand at Kirsty’s Place persisted throughout the pandemic, Benedict said. Even when schools went online with instruction, many parents still had to go to work, leaving the day care with the responsibility of helping children with their lessons, she said.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever be fully recovered — not necessarily financially, but mentally and emotionally as far as staff and children,” Benedict said. “Parents had gone through hard times during the pandemic that these children didn’t quite understand, and it shows in their behavior and emotions. As far as employees, we all just did the best we could with long hours to keep everything right and to keep our doors open.”
BUSINESS WELCOMES CITY’S HELP
Finding affordable child care was an issue for parents in Northwest Arkansas before the pandemic, according to the findings of a 2019 Walton Family Foundation report. For example, areas in Benton and Washington counties with the highest concentrations of working adults may have access to home-based care, but not nearby center-based care. Families without a stayat-home parent were more likely than those with a stayat-home parent to use nonparental care for infants and toddlers, and for longer periods of time, at least 30 hours weekly.
Fayetteville has about 60 licensed child care providers, according to the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Robin Slaton, chief executive officer of Kiddie Campus Child Care Center on Huntsville Road, said the average weekly rate per child at her facility is about $250. After the essential worker child care assistance program ended, many parents sought lower bills to keep their children enrolled in child care. Kiddie Campus has to charge what it does in order to pay its employees what they deserve and to keep programming high quality, Slaton said.
That’s why Slaton said she welcomed the city’s program. Providing the assistance directly to the service providers, and a month ahead of time, enables the business to better budget its finances, she said.
Slaton said so far about a dozen of her clients have applied to receive assistance through the city’s program. Kiddie Campus cares for nearly 60 children.
She praised the city’s program, but knows it only will last a year. She said she hopes the city will find a way to continue the program, or employers will fill the gap and cover child care for their employees. Otherwise, the parents who need assistance and the center providing the child care both will be in a difficult situation, she said.
“As a business owner, it makes you sit here and go, ‘OK, somebody else needs to step up, step in, see the problem and help us out,’” she said.
Fayetteville has about 60 licensed child care providers, according to the Arkansas Department of Human Services.