Last week, Russell Lahodny, President & CEO, celebrated Pre-K week by reading to the preschoolers at West Haven Preschool. Childcare remains a priority issue within our community. 
From the perspective of the childcare facilities, finding staff is the biggest challenge. Now you might ask, how is this different than any other business? Let me explain.
Unfortunately, most childcare facilities aren’t able to pay large salaries. In fact, fast food restaurants are now paying more than what some of these facilities are paying. So unless you have a passion for early child development, most people are going where they can earn more money. You factor all that together and you have a shortage of people working at preschools.
With a limited number of staff, the preschools are forced to limit the number of students they enroll. Each school has student- to-teacher ratios that must be adhered to. If the facility is not able to be fully staffed, it cannot accept as many students as its license allows it to have. This is one of the reasons why you see waiting lists of more than 100 students at each facility.
Until our roundtable discussion, a common thought was that we just needed more facilities. Though one could argue there is a need for more facilities, where would the staff come from? Now you would have more preschools fighting for the same workers and making it even harder to be fully staffed.
How does this impact our business community? Well, think of all the facilities in our region. There are roughly 30 Childcare Learning Centers in Columbia County. For the sake of this example, let’s say each one has a waitlist of 100 students. That’s roughly 3,000 workforce-eligible people who are being sidelined because they don’t have access to childcare.
I’ve heard some say, “Well, why don’t they just raise their wages? They are making a ton of money!” Salaries are the number one expense of each facility. Then add their
rent or mortgage, utilities, and the skyrocketing food prices, the schools are operating on a razor-thin margin. Plus, increasing wages would have a trickle-down effect on the families, who are already facing tuition increases just to cover the cost increases of food and supplies.
The subsequent increase in tuition would force many families to make a critical decision. Do they get paid enough in their current job to make it worthwhile to stay employed or do they leave the workforce to be a stay at-home parent and live on one salary for the household. Yes, there are programs that can help families pay for childcare but until recently, the income threshold was well below the poverty line. You think finding employees is tough now?
Childcare is an integral part, if not the cornerstone, of a thriving workforce. Don’t be surprised if you begin seeing more children behind the counter of establishments across the region. If it means the difference between closing a store and keeping it open, I don’t think employers have much of a choice.
The Chamber will continue to partner with the Development Authority and other workforce- minded organizations to find solutions to this critical situation. The childcare roundtable is meeting again this week to continue conversations.