Governor Tony Evers visited child care centers across the state Wednesday as the first round of state funding for them was released.
This included a stop at the YMCA Youth Development Center in Rhinelander.
The YMCA Youth Development Center in Rhinelander has received more than $700,000 over the last five years through the Child Care Counts program.
There are currently about 58 children enrolled there.
YMCA Mission Advancement Director Abbie Cline says that money has gone mostly into paying staff wages to be able to attract and retain staff as well as support the curriculum all while trying to keep costs down for families.
“Our center specifically runs at a zero net profit, so everything that we get from parents for fees gets put right back into the center,” said Cline. “The Y is not making any money running the center. It's purely mission based. And still, about 80 to 85% of our parent fees goes back into wages to be able to pay our staff.”
Still Cline says staff deserves more appropriate, livable wages. She hopes this latest funding program will help them get closer to that goal.
“We would love to see it continue so that we can continue to pay staff the wages that they are currently at and hopefully increase them so that they are at a more appropriate, livable wage,” said Cline.
Cline says the people that work in the field do it because they love it and find it rewarding to work with the children.
During Governor Tony Evers’ visit to the development center Wednesday, one staff member told the Governor her teenage son makes a higher wage than she does.
Evers says it will take more state support to get there.
Included in the recent state budget for the first time was $110 million for the Child Care Bridge Payments Program, which is similar to Child Care Counts.
“We need to double that next time around. Simple as that. $100 million is $100 million, and it sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money, but there's a lot of kids that are getting service at the same time. I think we can get there. It's just a matter of compromise,” said Evers.
The Child Care Counts program was created five years ago using federal pandemic relief aid.
The program sent money directly to child care centers with the goal for paying staff wages while keeping costs to families down.
Local day care have told WXPR in the past those funds helped keep their center afloat.
Evers has tried to get state funding for the program in the past, but it was removed before the final budget.
He credits redrawn state legislative maps in getting the funding included this time around.
“There's almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. It's about compromise, and that's the difference,” said Evers. “What it did is it gave people that were generally against that to kind of think through it and understand how it is important.”
Cline says this investment into child care is important for both the child’s development as well as the economy.
“Those are our future adults. Those are the people that are going to be making a difference in our community,” said Cline. “It's also how we attract professionals. If we are trying to attract quality professionals in our area, they need to make sure that they have child care so that they can keep their jobs and continue to be a professional.”
The first payment from Child Care Bridge Payment program went this month totaling $8.7 million to more than 3,100 child care providers in the state.
