Voters asked to OK child care sales tax hike

Measure C would expand services, improve programs, raise pay for care providers

As families in Alameda County struggle with the rising cost of child care and long waits for subsidized day care slots, proponents of a March ballot initiative are hoping voters will approve a sales tax increase to expand affordable child care and give child care workers a pay hike.

If approved by a majority of voters, Measure C would impose a half cent sales tax increase to raise an estimated $150 million annually. The money would be used for a range of services for children and families: increasing the number of child care subsidies for low- to middle-income families; providing a $15 an hour salary for child care and early education providers; improving the county’s child care and preschool programs; and supporting more access to free and lowcost pediatric health and emergency services at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Alameda County voters in 2018 rejected a similar measure by a narrow margin.

Supporters of the Children’s Health and Child Care Initiative — which has no formal opposition — say the measure is especially important for families struggling to keep up with rising rent and day care costs. In 2018, the cost of full-time infant care in a licensed center in Alameda County was more than $20,000 a year, according to a recent report from the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network.

Currently, 7,000 children are on the county’s waiting list for subsidized day care slots. And less than half the children in the county who qualify for such slots are enrolled, according to First 5 Alameda County, which would administer the new funds.

Creating more slots, supporters say, would help families that come up with elaborate workarounds as they wait years for spaces to open up. To be eligible for a subsidy, a family of four can make up to about $80,000 annually. But experts say anyone making that much is unlikely to get a spot because the waiting list serves the lowest-income, neediest families first.

“Sometimes a family can be on the waiting list until their kids don’t need it,” said Carolyn Carpenter, a licensed family care provider in Oakland who helped draft the measure. “You wonder what happens to the kids and families that don’t have access to child care (while they wait). Do the parents end up unemployed and that’s part of our increasing homeless problem? This would get more kids off the waiting list.”

First 5 estimates the measure would create 4,000 to 5,000 new subsidized spots within the first year or two, and other supporters say it could help about 21,000 children by funding improvements in early child care programs.

Eighty percent of the measure’s funds would go toward child care and early education services, including child care subsidies, and 20% would be allocated to the pediatric health care program. The tax would remain in effect for 20 years

Carpenter said the wage increase would make a “big difference” for many local child care workers. The 51-year-old has been providing child care for 30 years and said she doesn’t know any workers who have money saved for retirement.

“It’s a big issue,” Carpenter said. “There are people in their 70s and they can’t retire because they don’t have the money to do it so they just have to keep their programs open.”

Clarissa Doutherd is executive director of Parent Voices Oakland, part of a statewide group that lobbies for affordable child care and the coalition advocating for Measure C.

“This investment yields millions of dollars for generations of children,” Doutherd said. “And we think that’s an incredibly positive thing and a win-win for everyone in Alameda County.”