This is a guest opinion

As the product of quality childcare, I understand just how much it can positively affect the trajectory of a person’s life. Which is why it saddens me to see how much Alabama is failing at supporting those charged with educating our youngest minds and most precious resource – children.

Unfortunately, Alabama is failing at adequately funding early childhood education programs, and this is depriving children of the education they deserve and need. The lack of investment is also fueling a childcare crisis that will adversely affect the educational and economic opportunities of children, childcare workers, and families. To ensure brighter futures for the next generation, policymakers must fix the childcare crisis, and they can start by adequately funding it.

Alabama’s Department of Human Resources (DHR)’s Child Care Subsidy Program, partially subsidizes childcare services for low-income families. However, reimbursement amounts differ widely across the state. For example, DHR reimburses providers in Huntsville $160/week per child compared to $130/week in Dothan. These differences emanate from data based on Market Rate Surveys. The market rate bases reimbursement on income differences in areas, but it doesn’t account for the true cost of operating childcare centers.

Uneven Subsidies

One provider in my network explained the challenge this way: “The way the state awards subsidies is based on regions, even though all childcare educators in the state do the same work. What one must do to operate a childcare facility in Northern Alabama, is the same exact thing those of us in Southeastern Alabama must do,” said Kishia Saffold, a provider based in Dothan, Alabama. This point is backed up by research: there is an approximately $16,000 gap between the yearly childcare subsidies and the true operating cost of quality infant care.

Beyond market rate funding issues, Alabama disproportionately allocates funds to preschool programs aimed at 4-year-old kids, at the expense of programs for younger kids Alabama’s First Class Pre-K Funding Program allocates up to $100,000 of funding per classroom (of approximately 18 kids). This formula not only ignores the funding needs of early childhood programs but also the needs of childcare providers who work with preschool kids in rural areas that lack state-funded pre-school programs at all.

The funding issues at the state and local government levels harm so many people in our state. Childcare owners, workers, and the families are disproportionately impacted. Many childcare business owners must make magic out of limited resources when it comes to running our centers.

We must us personal loans, grants, or forgo benefits like health insurance to sustain our bottom line. Without enough money, we vacillate between taking children at a financial loss for our business or pass on extra costs to parents; many of whom struggle to afford childcare for their families. The current funding formula also makes it harder to maintain the staff needed to create a high-quality educational experience for young ones.

Educators Are Impacted as Well

To be clear, under-resourced childcare centers cannot adequately pay their teachers and childcare workers the dignity wages that they deserve. In 2019, the average Alabama childcare worker earned about $9.19/hour. While DHR was required to offer $3000 bonuses to childcare workers due to COVID-19, those supplements will end in 2023. There are no plans to offer any other form of income supplementation for workers.

This wage stagnation is particularly compounded by the increase in regulations for people to enter into childcare work. Today a childcare worker must be 19 and have a GED or high school diploma. The increased requirements for childcare workers, without corresponding pay increases, have led to issues with attracting and retaining high-quality staff. Constance Dial, a Mobile-based provider, elaborated, “We have an issue of revolving door employment. Where people will work with us for a while and then leave for Pre-K or the school system or change careers. They do not see this as a full-time career anymore.”

Families and children also suffer due to the financial constraints imposed on childcare facilities. Without adequate funding, childcare providers must raise costs which hurt families. For example, single-mother households, which make up 60% of Alabama’s family households, already spend on average 28% of their income on childcare.

“This can lead to Mom opting for part-time daycare, which means she can only work part-time. Or even opting out of the workforce and staying home since it may be cheaper to stay home with their child,” Arlean Cole, a Huntsville-based provider shared with me.

Children suffer the most.

It’s estimated that 80% of a child’s brain development occurs in the first three years of their life. It can be hard for people outside of the childcare industry to understand the extent to which exposing an infant or toddler to proper language or socialization skills can impact their future educational and work outcomes. Kids, especially in Alabama, rely on our advocacy for them to ensure they can attain their full potential.

To improve childcare, the state must switch from market-rate to true-rate cost to determine reimbursement rates for subsidy programs. But policymakers must also listen to providers, the people who wake up everyday committed to serving the best and brightest among us.

Further, the state can also streamline the onboarding process.

One provider, Lisa Nimmer, who lives in Butler County, Alabama, shared; “Time-sensitive things -such as finger printing, health and safety training, CA-N reports – should be structured in a way that sets the provider up for success. Right now, there is so much red tape that slows the onboarding process and that impacts how many people we can serve. There have been many times where I can’t add children because I’m waiting to add teachers. The system must be as streamlined as possible, so children and families don’t haven’t to wait.”

We owe Alabama’s most precious resource access to high quality educational services. This is a basic responsibility, and one that our state can and should do.

Lenice Emanuel is the executive director of the Alabama Institute for Social Justice