Childcare cuts may force impossible choices
By: Shannon Gibney
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 5/8/2003

Moderate- to moderately low-income families would be hardest hit

Norma Wilson never thought the day would come when she would have to choose between working and caring for her kids. But that day may have arrived. If the proposed Minnesota House of Representatives cuts to childcare are passed later this month, Wilson, an administrative assistant and her husband, who works in sales, have no idea how they will pay for childcare for their nine-year-old twins and four-year-old son.

“For my family, [childcare costs] will go up three times what they are now,” says Wilson. “It would be very unaffordable. It probably would limit the access that we have to get quality childcare. Most likely, if my co-payment goes up it would be impossible for us to keep our childcare.”

Unfortunately, the Wilsons are not alone; thousands of other working families could be forced to make similar impossible choices if House legislators have their way. As usual, a disproportionate number of African American families fall into the “moderate to moderately low” income category that will be hardest hit.

Sharon Henry-Blythe, executive director of the Greater Minnesota Day Care Association (GMDCA), says, “The House proposal basically will dismantle the childcare system as we know it in Minnesota. It alters just about every component. It raises co-payments — the part that families have to pay out-of-pocket for childcare services — [and] changes eligibility guidelines so fewer people will have access.”

“It eliminates some programs,” Henry-Blythe says. “There’s an At Home Infant Care Program — it was the first in the nation, and it has been looked at by other states in terms of a strategy to help families have parental leave when they have newborns. So it eliminates that. It puts costs on family childcare providers for licensing and re-certification. Family childcare providers are going to have to absorb costs that they are not prepared for.”

Henry-Blythe says that, under this plan, many childcare providers would be run out of business, a prospect which frightens Phyllis Sloan, executive director of La Creche Early Childhood Centers.

“Providers are probably the least paid in regards to those who work to educate and inform the children, and also the parents who haven’t had the training navigating these organizations and systems and policies,” says Sloan. “If we’re not there, everything else is much more institutional and off-putting, not child-friendly, not family-friendly. And if we’re not there, who will do that work? It will be a terrible, terrible loss.”

Evette McCarthy, director of McDonald’s Sunshine Place, agrees with Sloan’s assessment. She says, “[If the cuts go through] quite a few of our parents would fall off the subsidized list. Ninety-five percent of our parents are subsidized by the county. With the cuts we would lose eight to 10 parents [out of a total of 20]. We would lose a minimum of $15,000 a year from our budget.

“In addition,” says McCarthy, “the co-pay fee would be too high for most parents. We’re one of the few childcare centers that makes arrangements with parents to take care of their co-pays [allows them to come in and work to pay for part of it]. But if co-pays increase three to four times [what they are now], that’s going to be absolutely impossible.”

Families with moderately low incomes (families of three with an income between $30,000 and $42,000, or families of four with an income of $36,000-$50,000) would be hardest hit by the cuts. That’s because under the House’s plan, these families would pay 13.2 percent of their budget to childcare, and under the Senate and the governor’s plan they would pay 7.4 percent of their budget. Under current law, childcare costs comprise 6.7 percent of these families’ budgets.

The Children’s Defense Fund estimates that these families already spend more than 80 percent of their budgets on basic necessities (food, rent, utilities). With the attendant healthcare cuts the House and governor are proposing, families would be expected to pay 30-40 percent of their budgets to childcare and healthcare — which would be impossible. Although the Senate’s recently released plan does not significantly increase these costs on the surface, a deeper analysis of their healthcare plan in particular reveals that working families will get much less coverage for their money and be forced to navigate an increasingly complicated bureaucracy in the process.

Minh Ta, public policy director at the Children’s Defense Fund, calls these tactics “...as close to a direct assault on working families and children as we’ve seen in Minnesota.” Lowering eligibility and drastically raising co-payments would be devastating to these groups, he says.

“Co-payments go up 50-150 percent,” says Ta. “From the House change alone, just from eligibility cuts, they cut off 1,100 families immediately. And our fear is that’s not an estimate of people who can’t afford to pay the co-payments — there’s no way to estimate that.”

Henry-Blythe says that the House proposal in particular pits children against the elderly. “The House took $75-78 million out of childcare and are moving some of that money and funding seniors. They say they’re not favoring one program over another, but that’s the bottom line. They’re not cutting one program but they’re gutting another.”

“This is an awful devil’s bargaining game we’ve been engaged in,” says Ta, who encourages all concerned community members to talk to their legislators, neighbors, and newspapers, “...and force them to deal with this. Legislators need to be held accountable for these cuts.”
State Representative Neva Walker agrees: “Speak up, be heard, and tell a friend. We [African Americans] have not been paying attention to stuff over here [at the legislature] because we think it’s already a done deal, or we think that because we’ve been fine we’re going to continue to be fine. Uh-uh — there’s a lot at stake.”

Walker says she has been shocked listening to the kinds of statements her colleagues are making on the House floor about who can and should be fending for themselves. “People will say, ‘If you’re a single mother of two, you should have thought of that before you got pregnant.’ Or ‘Where’s the dad?’ or ‘Whose responsibility is it to really pay for childcare — is it really mine?”

Still, Walker has hope that the cuts will not be as deep as the House would like. “People need to rally around the Senate, around Senator Berglin and others to make sure they have enough support in the community. Because the pressure is going to be not to hold, to give in. Write her, call her, tell her. Are you paying attention to what Senator Berglin needs? Find out when the conference committee for Senator Berglin is going to be and take your dinner, come and sit, come and eat.”

Although Walker knows that navigating the complex legislative labyrinth can be daunting for many community members, she believes, nevertheless, that it is a necessity. “The [legislative] process is not friendly for a reason,” she says. “I’m a firm believer in hope; however, hope doesn’t