Suppliers, families spend the word in the Capitol for Evers child care • Wisconsin examiner

Legislators, childcare service providers and families – and some of their children – spread on Tuesday by the State Capitol, in the hope of persuading legislators to support an investment of $ 500 million in the childcare services in the budget proposal that Governor Tony Evers will reveal later in February in February.

“This must happen now and you have to be maintained,” said state representative Alex Joers (D-Middleton) on Tuesday morning at a press conference in the Wisconsin assembly show.

Heather Murray operates a childcare center in Waunakee, north of Madison, which has an approved capacity for 60 children, but it has kept the registration half this number because it cannot hire enough teachers.

“When I decided to create a center in my community, my goal was to make sure that families could go to work and let their children in a setting where they knew that their child would be nourished, educated and neat during the period More vulnerable from their lives, ”said Murray. “To offer these quality experiences to children, I need staff.”

During the Pandemic COVID-19, the Wisconsin was able to use the Federal Funds of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) 2021 to pay the monthly allowances of the childcare providers who helped them to strengthen the wages of the employees without having to increase the costs they charge to parents.

The childcare services which count the funds, originally $ 20 million per month, were reduced to half of this amount in mid-2023. When the republican majority of the State Legislative Assembly refused to take the tab to continue the program in the state budget 2023-25, Evers, a democrat, has reassured certain federal funds to extend the program grant until June 2025.

Murray said that the counting of childcare services have enabled her to increase the salary for childcare teachers, but she could not afford health services for her staff. When the state subsidy was half reduced, she said, it had to increase tuition fees by 9%. Two families left its center because they could not afford the higher rate.

“If these investments for early education do not remain in the governor’s budget, there is a possibility that I will have to increase my tuition fees by $ 65 per week per child, to keep my doors open and pay my staff the salary They are currently obtaining, “Murray says, adding that in surveys, Wisconsin providers said they should increase their costs without government support.

“If the providers continue to raise tuition fees, the working family will be sheltered from childcare services,” said Murray.

Split in five groups of four each, Murray, the parents and the children who accompanied them went to visit the offices of the legislators, focusing on the 16 members of the powerful joint financing committee, where the state budget will be written at the end of spring and early summer.

None of the Republican members of the Committee was available, said Murray in an interview a few hours later, although the group had a pleasant conversation with two of the four Democrats on the committee. The children distributed signs that said “invest in us”.

“I hope it draws attention,” said Murray.