Providers: Parents struggle to pay for child care

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Capitol news bureau
• Published: Nov 28, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Child-care-center directors in some of the poorest parts of Louisiana say they and low-wage-earning parents are struggling to keep children in day care.

Though the state offers child-care assistance to low-income families, five center directors in East Carroll, Evangeline and Madison parishes say some parents are still not able to come up with their part of the subsidized services.

“They don’t want to pay the co-pay,” said Carolyn Ward, director of the Professional Head Start Development of Lake Providence. “They can’t afford it. It’s too expensive for them.”

The division of child care and early education in the state Department of Social Services’ Office of Family Support oversees the assistance program.

Division policy coordinator Rhonda Cheek said the child-care assistance program pays for 80 percent, 60 percent or 40 percent of a child-care rate. The maximum rate the state pays is $17.50 a day for children ages 3 and up, and $18.50 a day for children from birth to 2 years, for 22 days each month, she said.

For example, the total payment allowed each month for a 3-year-old child in a day-care center is $385. If the parent receives the maximum 80 percent assistance, the state will pay for $308 and the parent would be responsible for $77.

Parents have to be working, conducting a job search or in school or training for 25 hours a week to be eligible for the assistance, Cheek said. How much assistance they receive is based on the income level and size of the qualifying family, she said.

About 40,000 Louisiana children benefit from child-care assistance each month, according to state records. The average payment from July 2007 to October 2008 ranges between $220 and $260.

But Denise McDaniel, director of Country Day Care and Learning Center in Ville Platte, said some child-care centers charge more than the state’s maximum rate. So parents have to pay their portion of the assistance, as well the excess amount, she said. 

Sherry Guarisco, director of the division of child care and early childhood education, said the state conducts a market rate survey every other year to help determine its payment rates. Another survey is currently under way, she said.

The last rate increase was in January 2007, she said. But there have been two increases in minimum wage since then, directors said.

The federal government suggests that states set their child-care assistance payment rates at the 75 percentile, meaning that the rate would pay for enrollment in 75 out of 100 centers, Guarisco said.

When the state increases its payment rates, it also decreases the percentage that parents have to pay, so that it is cost neutral to parents, she said.