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The facilities, dependent on state subsidies for many students, feel pinch.
Teacher Amy Puzio, at the Little People Day Care in Wilkes-Barre, interacts with children on Monday.
Pete G. Wilcox / The Times Leader
As the state budget impasse drags on into its third month, it’s not only state employees who are going without paychecks.
Day care centers throughout the region are facing decisions including whether to cut hours and staff, or whether to keep their doors open at all, unless the state budget is approved soon.
While the facilities are not state-run, they are often dependent on state subsidies that enable low-income families to send their children to day care.
According to John Hogan, director for Child Care Information Service Agency of Luzerne County, there are 130 licensed day care facilities in the county, serving 2,500 subsidized children. The state sent the county $10 million this past year for child care subsidies.
Those child care providers that are helped by subsidies, which leave most families with co-payments of $5 to $50 per week, have been watching the budget battle with interest. They bank on the state to pay the rest of the full price, typically anywhere from $110 to $200 per week, per child.
Without those funds, some centers have struggled to make it through the summer and might not make it to next month.
“Hopefully, we can get through September,” said Lisa Perfetto, owner of Little People Day Care on Hanover Street, Wilkes-Barre. “After September, we’ll have to make some tough decisions.”
That’s because of Little People’s 88 children, 75 are subsidized through the Child Care Works subsidy. The other 13 children’s parents pay the full weekly amount. That’s not enough to pay the salaries of Perfetto’s staff of 16, to buy the milk and snacks the children need, or to pay other bills.
“We haven’t yet, but it’s just a matter of time,” Perfetto said when asked whether anything’s been scaled back.
She said the company has been around for more than two decades and “we’ll do whatever it takes to maintain a superior level of care.”
Hogan said that to his knowledge no day care facility in the county has closed, but he has heard from many owners describing their plight and what kind of sacrifices they’ve made.
In the child care field since 1973, Hogan said he’s never seen it this bad.
“This is major,” Hogan said. “My big concern with this whole thing is if this goes much longer we’re going to see facilities start to close down.” He added that “there are small mom-and-pop operations and I’m very concerned about business failures and them not being able to come back even after the budget passes.” That will “have a ripple effect,” Hogan said, by causing a shortage of options for parents to send their kids and potentially forcing parents to quit their jobs to stay home to watch their children.
Among those facing the possibility of closing is Kid’s World Day Care on McAlpine Street in Duryea. All six children at the center are subsidized.
Owner Mary Ann Krushnowski has put everything she owns on the line to get through this budget stalemate in Harrisburg.
She has taken out a home equity line of credit from the bank to pay the bills in hope of a budget being approved soon.
Krushnowski said “The loan is what’s keeping us afloat. I can’t keep doing this. After one more month I’m sunk.”
But each passing day without progress in Harrisburg makes her more worried about the future of her home and the business she operates in her basement as she watches the bills pile up.
She chided members of the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell for causing this situation and for putting people’s livelihoods at risk.
“This is awful. If they don’t settle this soon, I lose everything,” she said.
Jane Jones owns two day care centers that employ a total of nine people: Miss Jane’s in Plymouth and Rally ‘Round Child Care Center in Larksville. She said that for now she’s getting by, but only because she and her husband are personally bankrolling the business.
Jones, of Sweet Valley, said that 32 of the 50 children she cares for at the two centers are subsidized by the state. She, too, took aim at Rendell saying he’s not personally feeling the effects and that “he’s eating at night.”
Krushnowski was even more incensed that the state has put the well-being of children at risk but has taken care of others.
“Prisoners are getting three square meals and these children,” she said with a pause. “I’m doing the best I can here.”
“I am at the verge of tears here,” Krushnowski said. “I don’t know what to do.”
Hogan said he has a pile of invoices that are waiting to be paid once the budget is settled. While day cares will get retroactive pay, they will not get interest to help offset the loans they’ve taken out. He said he feels for facility owners who are struggling to keep afloat but there’s not much his agency can do.
“It’s beyond our control,” Hogan said.
Stacey Witalec, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Welfare, said a survey was sent out recently asking day care providers to answer a few questions regarding how the impasse has impacted them. Of the 43 Luzerne County-based providers that responded, they indicated that 51 employees have been laid off.
She said the “dire situation” is impacting business owners, employees, parents and children.
“This is a widespread crisis …,” Witalec said.
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