Parents urge Toronto not to cut daycare funding

Toronto budget proposal to end rent subsidy for school-based daycares would boost fees by about $350 a year.

Thestar.com
Jan. 4, 2017
By Laurie Monsebraaten

New mother Amanda Wesson can’t believe Toronto wants to balance its budget on the backs of cash-strapped parents by ending a grant that helps fund childcare centres in schools.

“Toronto parents are already paying the highest daycare fees in the country. To ask us to pay more to close a budget deficit makes no sense,” she said Wednesday as news of the proposed cut began to spread through school-based child care centres and parent Facebook groups.

As part of the city’s attempt to fill a $91-million budget shortfall, Toronto children’s services staff are proposing to tear up a 20-year-old agreement with local school boards that covers the rent in 350 on-site daycare centres serving about 8,400 children from birth to age 4.

School-age programs, which serve another 17,000 kids, don’t pay rent during the school year.

The cut, slated for July, would not affect low-income parents receiving subsidies, who make up about half of those using school-based centres.

But parents paying full fees would see costs jump by $1.35 per day or about $350 per year, per child.

The move is expected to save $1.13 million this year and $2.26 million in 2018.

For Wesson, 34, who returns to work this spring and is desperately searching for daycare for her daughter Cecilia, 8 months, the possible fee hike just adds to the stress.

Her son Sullivan, 5, has attended the YMCA daycare at RH McGregor Elementary School since he was eligible at age 2 ½. Fees were about $1,000 a month until he started Junior Kindergarten last fall when the monthly cost dropped to $650 for before- and after-school care.

“I am hoping to get Cecilia into the centre there too once she turns 2 ½,” said Wesson. “I don’t mind paying for good child care, but this increase isn’t going towards improving quality.”

East York mother Sarah Grant, whose daughter Margaret, 3, attends the YMCA daycare in Chester Public School, would see her monthly fees of about $950 rise by $30 if city council approves the cut.

While it may seem as though it is a minimal amount, every penny counts, says Grant, as she has chosen to stay home with her son Eli, 12 months, because she was unable to find infant care she trusted to deal with his food allergies.

“My decision to no longer work means funds will be really tight for our family,” she said. “This added cost is very tough to hear.”

Grant hopes to return to work when Eli is a toddler and old enough to attend Chester daycare, which doesn’t offer infant care. Keeping Margaret enrolled at the centre is not only good for her daughter, but gives Eli a better chance of getting a space, she added.

Toronto Councillor Janet Davis worries that once the city’s daycare occupancy agreement is scrapped, school boards will be free to charge even higher rents.

Under the 1998 agreement with Toronto’s four public school boards, the city pays a “preferred” rent of $6.50 a square foot.

Centres built in schools after 2006 - about 12 per cent of all school-based daycares - pay the going rate of $11.06 a square foot, said Davis, who represents Ward 31, Beaches-East York.

It means the proposed $350 annual fee increase could quickly jump to about $600 for parents who pay full fees, she said. “And that’s on top of annual inflationary increases daycares charge.”

Toronto should not be contemplating cuts to child care funding at a time when both the city and the province are expanding the system, and Ottawa is working on a new federal-provincial daycare agreement, Davis added.

Council has already agreed to fund the construction of 2,000 new daycare spaces over the next five years and Queen’s Park has announced plans to add 100,000 infant and toddler spots province-wide by 2021, she noted.

“We can’t talk about expansion without talking about affordability and Toronto is going in the wrong direction,” Davis said.

“We should be keeping the occupancy agreement so parent fees don’t rise.

“And we should be adding subsidies to make centres viable and to keep parent fees affordable.”

Toronto school trustees are upset about the proposed cut and plan to speak against it during public budget consultations that start Thursday and run until January 10.

“We are asking the city not to make this cut,” said Ward 15 Toronto-Danforth Trustee Jennifer Story, co-chair of the Toronto District School Board’s Early Years Advisory Committee.

If the city scraps the agreement, school boards would have no choice but to recoup the rental cost from daycares because boards receive no provincial funding for the space they occupy, she said.

“The grant has been there this long for a good reason,” she said. “We know that child care in schools makes good sense, because it provides a seamless transition for children from infancy to school age.”

“We think the city should maintain the occupancy agreement until the city, the province and the federal government can come up with a tri-partite agreement to better support child care.”