Daycare operators struggle while state funding lags
By Bob Okon bokon@stmedianetwork.com July 16, 2011 9:06PM
Children spend time in the reading area Friday, July 15, 2011, at There's Fun in Learning Early Learning Center in Joliet, Ill. | Corey R. Minkanic~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: November 16, 2011 1:37AM
JOLIET — Carla Poindexter is counting the days until she has to shutter her daycare center while waiting on $54,000 in late payments from the state.
“We’ve used all of our emergency funds — the emergency savings and our personal savings,” said Poindexter.
Poindexter has 40 children enrolled in her There’s Fun in Learning Early Learning Center in Joliet. She and other daycare operators that do business with low-income, working parents have dipped into their own money and hunted for loans to meet payroll and stay in business while waiting for the state of Illinois to pay on a Child Care Assistance program.
Despite a hike in the state income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent at the start of this year, state government continues to fall behind on bills.
But payments on the Child Care Assistance program have never been so late as they’ve been this summer, said Poindexter and others.
“I’ve got to do something by next week,” said Jayme Moore, business manager for Richards Street Academy in Joliet. “I’ve already taken a loan on the payroll.”
The extent to which daycare centers are in trouble depends on how many of their families use the Child Care Assistance program.
But more families have become dependent on the program, said Amy Emerson, assistant director for Child Care Resource and Referral. The Joliet-based agency manages the program for daycare centers in a region that includes Will, Grundy, Kendall and Kankakee counties.
“In our four-county area, we have about 3,700 families in this program and over 6,000 children,” Emerson said. “I can tell you that the numbers are increasing because of the economy. There are people who were working and because of the economy their income has gone down, and they’ve become eligible for the program.”
The money is coming, state officials said Friday, although it’s not clear how soon.
Daycare operators have flooded their legislators and state officials with phone calls. On Friday, state officials said Gov. Pat Quinn ordered payments expedited. Money should be coming in “a few weeks,” a spokeswoman for the governor said.
“I kind of heard that before,” Poindexter said. “They’ve been saying a few weeks since the middle of June.”
Another problem for Poindexter is that she cannot hold out much longer.
Poindexter told parents Friday that she will close Aug. 1 if she doesn’t get the $54,000 the state owes her daycare center by then.
Waiting on the state
This new dilemma for daycare centers has perplexed not only people like Poindexter but also some state legislators.
“I don’t know why it’s happening,” said state Rep. Renee Kosel, R-New Lenox.
Kosel contends that the state income tax increase should have been enough to keep programs like Child Care Assistance funded. Instead, her office now is trying to find answers for daycare operators in New Lenox, Homer Glen and elsewhere who are scrambling to pay bills while the state is not.
“I got a call from one daycare provider who said, ‘I’m going to have to close down,’ and I got a call from another who said, ‘I’m going to lose my car,’” Kosel said.
Kelly Kraft, a spokeswoman for the governor, said in an e-mail that payments on the Child Care Assistance program were temporarily halted so the state could pay Medicaid bills by June 30.
“We are working to solve a structural deficit in Illinois that has been created over several years of fiscal mismanagement,” Kraft said in response to a question on why the tax hike is not covering the state’s bills. “The recent increase in taxes is helping to address this structural deficit, but in addition to increased revenue, spending reductions and further reforms in Medicaid and the pension system need to be made.”
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