MUSKEGON COUNTY, Michigan — Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist unveiled a new state program geared to ease the strain on the state’s beleaguered childcare facilities during an appearance in West Michigan Monday.
Gilchrist said the state plans to spend $100 million with the goal of opening 1,000 new facilities by 2024. He announced the investment, entitled the "Caring for MI Future" plan, during an event in Battle Creek.
13 ON YOUR SIDE polled several West Michigan childcare providers in the hours prior to Monday’s announcement.
While most signaled they were pleased state lawmakers were doing something to alleviate the strain, most also noted resolving the crisis would require a more comprehensive action.
According to data from Great Start to Quality, the state had around 1,500 fewer child care facilities as of 2021 than it did in 2014.
The data showed the COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to the decline, with hundreds more closing over a two-year span.
“I think that it's necessary for teachers and educators to be in Lansing.”
If she weren’t already pulling 60-plus hour weeks, Jessa Kelley said that’s precisely where she’d be, schooling state lawmakers on the stark realities of the childcare industry in 2022.
“We are just really hoping that… these new bills coming out or… some sort of help is going to come in,” Kelley said.
Together, Kelley and her mother run Explorers Learning Center out of a Roosevelt Park office space.
They operate four buildings and still, Kelley often has to tell families they’ll have to look elsewhere.
“We have parents that have been trying to get in for, you know, up to a year,” she explained. “Our state is definitely in desperate need for more childcare.”
Turning parents away has also become part of Trisha Dart’s job, given her Comstock Park Daycare maintained a record 18-month waitlist at the time of publication.
“At this point, I tell people, if you have childcare, and you're moving, it might not be in the area you want, but you're going to want to keep it,” she said. “You give up that spot, 30 minutes later, it's going to be filled.”
It’s why Dart says she would support Michigan House Bill 5041, which would the adjust the ratio of children to staff members currently allowed under state law to seven for every licensed provider, meaning thousands of new spots.
“People are asking family and friends and neighbors to help,” she said. “There's just no one, nowhere to go.”
Dart pointed to a lack of worker incentives.
A report out from the Michigan League for Public Policy revealed the worker turnover rate specific to childcare facilities had surged in recent years to upward of 30%.
The report’s authors pinned the bulk of the blame on industry-standard low wages it called "endemic."
“Pay them appropriately… while they’re doing this fantastically hard job,” Kelley said.
Kelley said payroll-related costs had increased approximately 30% since the preschool raised its starting hourly pay to $15 and rolled out a company healthcare plan to entice new hires.
Yet still, Kelley said the facility wasn’t generating enough interest to fill all of its openings.
“We’ve been doing everything that we can to continue to stay open so that we didn't become another childcare center that closes up,” Kelley said.
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