MARYSVILLE — Childcare costs hit a family budget hard. Operating costs for a childcare provider dictate the price a family will pay for care. In Marysville, a childcare forum focused on accessibility for parents working non-traditional shift hours and it brought together a wide array of Snohomish County leaders and small business owners seeking ways to improve access while maintaining affordability.
Washington Families Thrive, CEO and Founder, Debbie Carlsen, moderated a panel on incentivizing childcare growth to meet the work schedule needs for Snohomish County families.
Washington has the 6th highest cost of childcare in the country according to the website, Tootris.com. In Washington, Tootris.com reports, the average annual cost of infant care is $1,409 – $1,779 per month, which tops out at $21,348 annually. The price of childcare can prompt parents–usually the mothers–to quit a job or delay job seeking.
Carlsen tells EverettPost.com, “What really became clear” at last Friday’s Marysville roundtable, “is there are families that need access to non-traditional day care hours” for people working military, construction and grocery store jobs, to name a few.
Among the examples Carlsen cited are National Guard service members needing childcare during weekend exercise obligations, staff at the two Tulalip Casinos and aerospace workers at the Cascade Industrial Center where companies have round-the-clock shifts.
She says there’s, “high demand for non-traditional hours within childcare. Families are not sure how to find non-traditional hour providers.” Her group, Washington Families Thrive, is working to network and match daycare providers with families.
Carlsen’s mission is driven by the childcare sector as a prime factor of economic development. Some employers offer their workers childcare benefits as a method of employee retention which boosts economic and workforce growth. For parents that don’t receive that employer-paid stipend, finding affordable childcare is a budgetary necessity.
The forum included, State Rep. Julio Cortes (Everett), Marysville Mayor, Jon Nehring, Washington State Military Spouse Liaison, Olivia Burnley, Military & Family Readiness Specialist, Joint Services Support, Henry Taimanglo and Owner of Grocery Outlet in Arlington, Gina Hilker.
Carlsen’s forum examined what the state and city governments have been doing to spur childcare businesses. Carlsen tells the EverettPost.com, there are “lots of regulations–nearly 300–to start and maintain a childcare business. There are more regulations for childcare businesses than K-12 schools.”
She notes there are repetitions in some regulations. “It’s part of what keeps costs high”, the CEO says for childcare providers. “Those costs add up in your overall budget”, she offers, and those higher costs ultimately get passed along to the customer, the parents with childcare needs.
During the forum, Marysville Mayor, Jon Nehring, spoke about business permitting and how Marysville has implemented a pre-application process intended to reduce paperwork errors that require a business to refile with corrections because the approval process can take a week or a month every time a correction is filed. Time spent waiting for a permit approval is time that a business is still paying rent and utilities on a property while simultaneously waiting to officially open which commences the customer billing process bringing in the money needed to pay the childcare providers staff and bills.
Carlsen offered two more regulatory examples of costs the drive up the price of childcare. First, woodchips. Most childcare providers have some sort of playground equipment on site for pre-schoolers. If the wrong type of woodchips are surrounding the play structure, the state regulations can lead to a childcare provider being forced to buy and disperse the state mandated woodchips, adding an extra layer of costs for the business.
A second example is parking spaces at a childcare facility. The state recently loosened requirements on parking space minimums, which can allow for more flexibility on where a childcare facility can locate. Zoning changes have also allowed childcare facilities to open up in areas where it would previously not have been allowed to locate.
Carlsen says state and city leaders “can implement ways to start and maintain childcare businesses”, to move beyond discussing the “childcare crisis” and begin treating childcare as a foundational utility for economic and workforce growth
With the rapid expansion of the Cascade Industrial Center (CIC)–home for aerospace and defense businesses– and the North County corridor, Carlsen points out, access to childcare has become a critical barrier to business recruitment and employee retention.
“Childcare is no longer a family issue,” she says, “it is an economic driver at the regional level, and our region is working to address the childcare shortage to match Marysville’s housing and economic growth.”
A recent Snohomish County study on early education and child care found that 30% of providers said they had open slots for children. “But they’re small businesses and lack marketing budgets to find families to fill their slots,” Carlsen explains. WFT “fits into that” as a networking and matching service to pinpoint the childcare needs of those non-traditional hour workers in the area.
WFT is unveiling a new Regional Employer Pilot designed to connect workforces directly to underutilized childcare slots.