Day Care for $15.00 per day, Nationally - NDP Proposal

[Rachael]

Don't hold me to this, but it likely that the $15 a day would only be the PARENT fees. With being licensed I charge the parents only $18.20 per day but I get government grant money on top of that for every one of my daycare spots. There is no way I could do this otherwise, it is not enough income with just the parent fees.

Not that I think this election promise is going to happen, but just thought I would share that info.

Yes - that's how I imagined it would be. Parents paying $15 and the government settling the rest. There's no way day carers or centres can live off just $15 a day - that $1.50 per hour so $9 if full before expenses. Below minimum wage.

I think my concern is that the government settling the difference might mean we all have to be registered and here, that makes no sense if you have any business ability yourself. The numbers are exactly the same registered or not but there are restrictions on ages for those registered. This means instead of just trying to find a client who is a good match, I'd also have to find one whose child happens to be the right age for the vacancy.

Wow - so even subsidiary work differently across the county? That's really interesting.

In NS, a registered provider can still only have 6 kids including her own however they can take subsidized clients. But the providers are NOT paid for each of the places carte blanche.

What happens is the parents are assessed and awarded subsidary based on their income, work/school hours, etc. The MAX amount is $22 a day for all day care and $17 for BAS care but few are entitled to that much support.

So those clients who do get assistance, pay the outstanding amount of Day care fees - their personal subsided amounts. Therefore every single client getting assistance is paying a different amount. There is no government top up unless the individual qualifies for it so it's common to have a mixture of clients paying full cost and clients paying part with the government settling up the difference the following month only for those entitled to help.

EDIT

not to mention that you only get the top off every 3 months with an agency.

Another difference.

Here the provider does the paperwork at month end and submits to the agency. The agency files with the government who about a week later, send the fees. Then the agency divides the one government payment up between the carers based on entitlement. Can take a couple of weeks or so.

So if a provider her was charging say $35 a day and the family had been assessed as getting $20 in assistance, the family would pay their $15 as per the providers pay schedule. But the rest would have to wait until the end of the month + approx 2 weeks for the government $20.