For the past one year, the early-childhood educators in A Place to Grow in Oak Hill, W.Va. The school received a cash bonus of $200 in each paycheck for showing up to work.
“Just show up, turn up, don’t make excuses Be on time,” the center’s owner Melissa Colagrosso told employees.
With $24 billion of the pandemic relief program that Congress passed in 2021. The rewards made life much easier for the centers’ personnel and teachers.
With the expiration date of federal funds on September. 30 was the end of these bonus payments.
“All of the employees have been given a $400 per month pay reduction,” says Colagrosso.
She is now worried about what her employees will do to make ends meet. She believes that a few to soon quit her company to find jobs elsewhere.
A pandemic lifeline disappears
It’s a fact that the government’s money helped children during the midst of the pandemic.
In the 2021 American Rescue Plan, Congress approved the total amount of $39 billion in child care. This is an unprecedented amount of funding to ensure that crucial workers have the opportunity to get back to work. The bulk of the money -$24 billion was allocated to stabilizing child care facilities and daycares that are based at homes, in order to ensure they would be open and well-staffed.
Colagrosso The man who founded A Place to Grow 28 years ago, invested the funds into salaries and bonuses, as well as repairs and a new HVAC system and playground equipment for what was an empty field and even a van to shuttle older children between school and home as well as during summer during field excursions.
As the deadline of September 30 to spend the pandemic money has come and gone, she along with other childcare providers are wrestling with what they must get back.
“We’re going to need to reduce payroll. We’ll have to cut every place we can,” Colagrosso says.
In addition to limiting bonuses, she’s eliminated pay-for-sick leave to part-time employees and plans to stop it for full-time employees in the near future. She has eliminated a floating position that would allow someone to be a helper when assistance was needed.
There’s no need to give $1-an-hour increments each year, as she has done for the last three years. She could consider implementing higher ratios of children to teachers that she believes will impact the quality of education.
Child care costs are a challenge on both ends of the scale of pay
The running of her center in a remote, low-income region in West Virginia has never been simple. Colagrosso states that she had many times when she was struggling to pay the bills and eventually found herself in the bank, asking for the loan.
Three-quarters of the families she assists have less than 85percent of West Virginia’s median income, which qualifies them for state-funded subsidies. The ones who do pay the full tuition are unable to pay the bill, especially families with children. They are concerned that with the funding for pandemic relief gone, Colagrosso may have to increase her fees.
“We’d either be forced to do part-time work (one of us) or both of us quits our job and we wouldn’t be able to make,” says Brittany Smith an engineer in civil engineering. Her husband and she have twins who are one year old and 12 years old.
They were life-changing bonuses, but only for a short time.
Colagrosso’s current concerns revolve around her staff.
The pandemic benefits were life-changing for teachers like Destiny Vansickle, who saved enough funds to pay for an initial payment on two-bedroom home with her sisterit was it was a “forever place to call home” that she could use for both her newborn as well as her four-year-old.
“It’s been so pleasant to have our own home and my kids have their own yard,” she says, saying that the poor-income housing they left didn’t have a space for the kids to run around in.
Tena Gee, who has worked in A Place to Grow for 13 years, says rewards allowed her to buy her daughters, aged 9 and 12, daughters Christmas for the very first time — brand new bicycles, kayaks, and a doll for babies with its very own bassinet.
“Just being able to accomplish things on my own to help them, without needing to rely on someone else It’s something you’re unable to explain,” she says.
She also made the decision to make a change for herself. She was fed up of driving old cars that were prone to breakdown every day So she decided to buy herself an entirely new vehicle.
“I paid for costs that I was in a position to pay for due to the extra cash,” she says. “It was like the hard work I put in was finally getting recognition. It’s like I’m feeling that my salary is in line with the hard work I’ve put into.”
But the satisfaction lasted only a few days. In the absence of an extra $400 a month in bonuses Gee is in debt on her car loan.
“I think it might be our fault for not getting used to it, believing that it would be more than a temporary thing,” she says.
She’s thinking about finding an opportunity with better pay elsewhere.
The care of children is not the top priority
Senate Democrats have proposed legislation to prolong child care stabilization funding for five years, however the bill doesn’t get backing from Republicans.
West Virginia and other states are working to assist by utilizing the surpluses in their budgets to ease some of the pressure.
But, Colagrosso is facing deeper cuts.
“You perform the math just like every other company, but the numbers don’t add up,” she says. “This is exactly what I want. What I’m bringing into. There’s nothing there.”
Colagrosso said she used to believe she was seeing a deficiency understanding among elected officials about the importance of child care. It was an inability to comprehend that without affordable alternatives, people cannot go to work.
“[Thenthe pandemic struck and all the money came and I thought “Oh, they understood throughout. They were aware. They just didn’t put it in the proper perspective”” she explains.
After an all-too-brief acknowledgment of the importance of child care not just to families, but also for the economy as well, she’s worried that the same will be the case.
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