As the child care crisis deepens, local leaders are looking to the business community for new solutions, while keeping an eye on state legislation that could help thousands of families and employers affected by the problem. I'm looking for something.
“If we can pass this, it's going to be a game changer for us,” said Brittany Lamont of House Bill 635, director of a new child care operations task force launched late last year by the Sarasota County Early Learning Coalition.・Mr. Lamont said. .
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Fiona McFarland (R-Sarasota), would provide tax credits to businesses that operate child care facilities or contribute to paying for child care for their employees.
The bill is still in two committees, but has already passed the House Ways and Means Committee with a unanimous vote.
While looking forward to what the passage will mean for booming regions hit by a growing number of “child care deserts,” local leaders are eager to find additional ways to address the problem. busy.
The ELC Task Force was established in late November at the agency's first Community Business Breakfast held since the pandemic, bringing employers, nonprofits, parents, and local government leaders to the table to bring solutions together. The aim is to find a solution.
“This is shocking to everyone,” Lamont said.
Lamont, who is also president and CEO of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, said its mission is to expand child care capacity, especially in hard-hit South Sarasota County.
Their initial goal is to target preschool and daycare center operators who are in a position to grow or open, partnering with companies that can help with costs and other exorbitant issues in exchange for slots in the centers for their staff's children. It is to let.
The initiative is part of a growing national movement to address the critical shortage of quality, affordable child care, which leaves millions of parents, especially women, in the workplace. It is causing people to leave.
In addition to families, the crisis is increasingly hitting businesses as well.
A study by the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation estimates that the state's lack of available child care costs employers $4.47 billion each year in employee turnover and absenteeism. Masu.
Meanwhile, the House concluded that an additional $911 million in state tax revenue is lost due to missed work or parents being forced to quit their jobs altogether.
Lamont said the problem is particularly acute in fast-growing Sarasota.
In addition to the worst affordable housing crisis in the country, a child care shortage is making it difficult for local employers to retain and recruit employees, she said. Meanwhile, some parents spend years on center waiting lists, make long commutes to find a facility, and face costs that equal or exceed mortgage payments. There are some too.
While some large area employers have begun offering childcare services to their employees, the task force also hopes to help small and medium-sized businesses, which are the majority of businesses in the area, come together to advance their efforts. is also planned. Ideas include identifying companies that own excess buildings or real estate and want to house preschool or daycare operators on their sites.
Lamont, a mother of three, said: “If we want to continue to attract the best talent into the workforce, and if we want mothers and fathers alike to be able to provide for their families and have great careers, we need to You have to be able to support them.'' They feel like they're making the right decisions every day, putting their kids in the right center when they go to work. ”
Anna McClendon, ELC's director of outreach, said more families are finding it difficult to do that.
The country's current child care model has long been a challenge to ensure affordability, but in early childhood care and early education, high Availability in the region is worsening as more regulated industries are required, she said.
In the past two years, the number of Sarasota County's “child care deserts” — areas with at least three times as many children as there are certified child care slots — has grown from five to 12, McClendon said.
Most of it is in south Sarasota County.
“It's brutal,” McClendon said.
Some experts say the shortage will become even more acute after a huge pandemic-era federal child care investment expired last year, resulting in child care cuts for more than 212,000 children in Florida. It warns that a “childcare cliff'' may occur. In a recent analysis, the Florida Policy Institute urged Congress to intervene and identified nine revenue sources that could be used for early learning programs.
Across the country, a growing number of Republican lawmakers and red states are joining Democrats and the Biden administration in supporting public spending on child care, with some calling it “critical infrastructure.”
Closer to home, ELC CEO Janet Kahn said challenges aside, there is growing interest from the business community and the potential to increase access to subsidized child care for working families. He said he is encouraged by the McFarland bill and other legislative proposals.
“I feel cautiously optimistic,” Khan said.
By pulling out all the stops, including local foundations partnering with the ELC program to fill funding gaps and train and retain preschool teachers, Khan said the Sarasota County Commission will begin providing child care assistance to working families later this year. He said he hopes he will make a decision to continue. This indicates that this may not be the case.
Meanwhile, the task force will be busy studying what's working elsewhere — bold models that can be emulated, such as Michigan's TriShare program. This is a promising public-private partnership that is becoming popular across the country, where child care costs are split equally between the state and the employer. and employees.
The ultimate goal of child care advocates is to tie the construction of child care centers to developers' plans for apartments and other multifamily housing, because the housing and child care crisis is so germane to families, employers, and communities at large. That's what she said.
“We cannot work in isolation,” Khan said. “Everything is connected.”
This article is a product of a partnership between the Sarasota Herald Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues around housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the region. She can be reached at [email protected].
