Local child care providers are rallying behind the idea of a dedicated office to improve child care access and quality, but not everyone on the Council and in county government agrees that approach is the best way forward.
Child care professionals, parents and children representing about a dozen different child care operations showed up on Tuesday in Rockville with signs and shirts in support of a bill from Councilmember Hans Riemer that would create an Office of Child Care in county government. Many testified in support at a public hearing that followed.
The director of the office would be responsible for developing a strategic plan, taking over the controversial process for selecting which providers get valuable school space, reducing child care costs and perhaps increasing financial assistance to low income families who can’t pay for it otherwise.
“What we’re trying to do with this legislation is reignite the conversation here in Montgomery County and get people back to the table to say, once again, we have to make the quality of child care services, the availability of them a priority in our community,” Riemer said Tuesday.
Riemer said the ultimate vision is universal and affordable child care for county children all the way from infancy to kindergarten.
But Health and Human Services Director Uma Ahluwalia and the county agency that doles out public school space to providers testified against the measure Tuesday, saying they already are striving for the same vision.
Councilmember Nancy Navarro, who introduced two bills of her own aimed at child care issues, said she won’t support the creation of a Child Care Office because most of those services are already provided by HHS.
“If the goal is to create another layer of bureaucracy and then call it a day, then that’s one of doing it,” Navarro said. “I think creating a totally different and removed office from HHS actually undermines what we’ve been pushing for in the county.”
Child care providers supporting Riemer’s effort outlined a broad range of issues, including how the county’s Community Use of Public Facilities (CUPF) section bids out child care space and flat funding levels for a county child care subsidy called the Working Parents Assistance Program.
“The county needs to become more intentional around child care so that there is a real strategic focus,” said Joanne Hurt, executive director of the nonprofit Wonders Child Care Center that has multiple locations in the area. “Right now, a lot of the things are sort of siloed. That makes it difficult for parents to access quality child care and it makes it difficult for providers.”
Debbie Diederichsen, director of development for child care provider Bar-T, told the Council that it must deal with three different county agencies regarding rent, quality requirements and bidding. That can often mean working with both HHS and CUPF at the same time at the same location.
“Part of the issue is there are so many concerns that it’s not something that’s going to be solved by just a single little change,” said Shaun Rose, president of the Rock Spring Children’s Center. “That’s why this office is so appealing because it would actually set up a structure where there would be people responsible for looking at all of these issues together.”
One of Navarro’s bills would create a program within HHS to train both current licensed child care providers and prospective ones. The other bill, passed this week via a unanimous Council vote, will provide fee waivers for nonprofit groups hoping to rent out government and public school space.
“My observation is that we have public facilities in high demand and at the same time, we have very clear needs around low-income families and organizations that can’t afford to pay the rent,” said Navarro, who as part of a White House commission on Hispanic education will take part in a child care summit this summer in Chicago.
Navarro said she started working with Riemer on a bigger child care bill last year but the two “parted ways when he was unwilling to collaborate with me.”
Council President George Leventhal told the rally of child care providers supporting Riemer’s bill that he was proud of both Riemer’s and Navarro’s efforts.
Rose and others say the school space issue is one of the things driving lower salaries for child care teachers in the county. Many would like to see CUPF removed from the process altogether.
“Now, we have providers that are competing with each other to provide affordable care so much that there’s a downward pressure on teacher salaries and benefits in order to win the bids,” Rose said.
Grace Oven-Rivera, chair of the board that oversees CUPF, told the Council Tuesday that the current process has worked well for decades.
“It is clear that we are all interested in what is best for our children,” Oven-Rivera said. “Creation of a new office would require allocation of significant funds, which is difficult in these tough budget times.”
Riemer told supporters Tuesday that he will push for money to create the office in this year’s budget cycle, with the goal of having it up and running in the next fiscal year.
“We want to begin to create the kind of political movement that it will take in this county to really make a difference,” Riemer said.
