Child Care Counts help local childcare centers

GREEN BAY – For years, childcare centers across the country have been dealing with staffing and funding issues.

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) recently announced the results of DCF’s Child Care Supply and Demand Survey.

In that survey, they found that due to a lack of staffing, nearly 60% of providers across the state have needed to change the way they operate — whether it be changing their hours, limiting the number of kids they take on, closing classrooms or even shutting down completely.

Though child care is crucial for most families, it is unaffordable for a lot of people — costs are reaching anywhere from 35-70% of the average household income, a report from Gov. Evers’ office stated — and employees are often paid the bare minimum with few benefits.

Because of this, employees often leave to find jobs with better pay, leaving centers struggling and not having enough staff to meet their minimum needs.
Shelly Van Rens, director at Green Bay’ Kidz In Motion Child Care Center, said the lack of employees makes it hard to meet the need of the center.

“We currently have one classroom closed and two running at half capacity. [Because of this] we currently have over 100 children on our waiting list ranging from ages six weeks to 12 years. We are licensed for 100 children and currently have [only] 47 enrolled. We would love to be able to hire at least two additional teachers so that we could fill the two classrooms that are running at half capacity,” she said.

“In the past year we have had to raise our rates $60 per week per child [which] went to raise the wages of our staff. We were able to increase hourly wages from $10 an hour to $15 an hour; unfortunately, our staff does deserve more.

“That is one of the hard dilemmas of childcare, it is hard to pay employees a decent living wage and still keep childcare affordable for the working family.”
But, not every center is experiencing the same issues.

Candie Thomas of Stepping Stones Child Care in Green Bay said, “We have been pretty well-staffed, even though we do have some turnover, mostly based on low wages. We have not had to deny [kids] due to lack of staffing; we have a waitlist because we are full. We did have to increase [our] rates more than we usually do this past year, and they will be going up even more this coming January.”

In an effort to combat these issues, a program known as Child Care Counts was created in 2020.

The program provides funding to eligible and regulated childcare providers.
The financial support offered for this program can be used for many things, from hiring and maintaining staff to covering any costs and expenses needed to stay in business and provide high-quality care.

The program operates in rounds.

It is currently in round five, a 12-month program that started in July 2024 and will continue until June 2025.

Once eligible centers are approved, they receive ongoing monthly payments that help them keep their doors open.

Evers’ statement said that, “It has helped more than 5,314 child care providers [across the state] keep their doors open, ensuring the employment of 64,533 child care professionals and allowing providers to continue care for more than 364,280 kids.”

Van Rens and Thomas said that they apply to the Child Care Counts program every month.

“There is a large misunderstanding that childcare centers should be making tons of money based on what we charge per child per week. What people forget is that even though we provide a social service, we are still a business and still have expenses like any other business. Those expenses include, but are not limited to, rent/mortgage, insurance, utilities, payroll, payroll taxes, employee benefits, building maintenance, food, child supplies, vehicle maintenance and insurance if they provide transportation, licensing fees, fees or permits for the city/village, etc.” Van Rens said.

“Grants like Child Care Counts not only helped us during the pandemic when we were forced to cut enrollment and staff, but has helped centers stay open now that it has become hard to replace those staff members to increase enrollment to what we are licensed for.”