Staffing shortfalls at child care centers addressed at roundtable
A Washington County child care operator is urging support for $55 million in the proposed state budget to help address staffing shortages in child care centers.
State. Sen. Camera Bartolotta joined child care professionals and parents Friday morning at SmartKids Child Care & Learning Center in North Strabane Township for a roundtable discussion on the staffing shortfalls.
Donna Shriver, owner of SmartKids, referred to a survey of 16 child care programs in Washington County completed by Start Strong PA in September that found there are 48 unfilled staff positions. Of those 16 programs, 94% reported teacher shortages.
“So why is this happening? Why do we have such a problem with staffing? And the answer is low pay, wages,” Shriver said.
She encouraged Bartolotta to support a $55 million line item in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget for child care recruitment and retention.
The funding would allow child care providers to offer employees an additional $1,000.
“The $1,000 that we’re asking for per staff person might be a minimal amount, but it means so much,” Shriver said. “I went around and I talked to my staff and I said, ‘What would you do with $1,000 if I handed it to you today?’ Oh, buy groceries, make my car payment,” Shriver said.
Emily Neff, director of public policy for Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Trying Together, said the average wage for child care teachers is approximately $15.50 an hour.
“So that really doesn’t meet the cost of living. Not in Washington County, and actually not in any county in Pennsylvania,” Neff said.
SmartKids also has a Washington location. Their facilities offer child care from infants to 12 years old. Shriver said during the roundtable it could be difficult to keep it going without the proposed state funding.
“I can’t keep raising tuition. I can’t keep paying my staff what they deserve. I can’t keep running the center. It’s a struggle, and I need some help,” Shriver said.
Bartolotta began her remarks by calling Shapiro’s proposed $51.5 billion budget “way over the top.”
“Where are we going to get this money? Where’s it coming from?” Bartolotta said.
However, she is supportive of the investments in child care and early education. She hopes it could help families have more children and reverse the trend of dwindling populations in Pennsylvania communities.
“If we can provide really good education opportunities and child care for these families, maybe their families will grow, and maybe we could keep families here so that they could help us offset the skyrocketing demographic of geriatrics in Pennsylvania that are really taking from the economy and the taxpayer,” Bartolotta said.
Parents who send their children to SmartKids also attended the roundtable. Molly Pellegrini said one of her three children started day care during the pandemic, and that experience showed her issues like staff turnover can affect kids.
“You could see a change in her, even at 7 months old, whenever the teacher bringing her to the door was not her normal teacher,” Pellegrini said.