Budget cuts may stall child care

Care beneficial to faculty, staff

By: CAROLYN CRIST

Posted: 10/14/08

Budget cuts continue to hit all areas of campus - including child care - but the University may be able to propose on campus child care plans by November.

The UGA Child Care Needs Assessment Study conducted earlier this year was presented to faculty and staff, but the administration had to postpone child care ideas to examine the financial side.

Provost Arnett Mace and Tim Burgess, senior vice president for finance and administration, have been examining four options since the summer and plan to offer an option to President Michael Adams next month.

"They have been talking with vendors about various options available," said Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs. "They were sidetracked by the budget problem and had to spend time working on that first."

On-campus child care continues to be of interest to faculty and staff, especially because the McPhaul Child Development Lab can only offer 93 spaces in the program. The program slots eight spaces for infants and adds three or four spaces for each age group. Children who enter the program typically attend every year, leaving little room for space.

"We have a wait list of typically one to three years," said Amy Kay, director of the lab. "Children tend to stay here, so there's not a lot of attrition or changing of rosters. Right now we have one space available in the 3-year-old class, which has never happened while I've been here. We're working toward filling the spot."

Karen Russell, an associate professor of journalism, expressed support for the McPhaul lab but also additional care on campus.

"The Child Development Lab at McPhaul is an amazing facility, and I'm lucky my child gets to go there," she wrote Monday in an e-mail to The Red & Black. "As a research facility the CDL does not need to be larger, but the campus definitely needs general daycare for children of faculty, staff and students. Parents shouldn't have to worry about their kids' safety or the learning environment, and too often that is the case with off-campus daycare."

When University employees ask about local child care, Kay refers them to the Child Care Resource and Referral Agency, housed in Athens, for information on home care facilities and early learning centers.

Adams and Burgess began talking to Flo Wilkes, owner of Oconee Preschool Academy in Watkinsville, in July to promote her business to faculty, staff and students as a "preferred provider" if she offered a tuition sliding fee scale based on family income.

Due to budget cuts the University has not been able to confirm financial and nominal support of her, but Wilkes announced last week she would offer the sliding fee scale to University staff and faculty, as well as transportation if needed.

Both Oconee County child development centers are seven miles from campus.

"The state revenue continues declining, and the University will probably have to come up with more budget cuts," she said during a phone interview. "I think I should get the word out now that I can offer the scaled tuition for awhile."

Joe Dennis, a journalism professor, said he struggled to find child care in 2007 when his daycare provider's home had to close due to fire damage. He said an on campus child care provider would be well received.

"I have no doubt it would be used, especially if they're able to make it affordable to staff members who don't earn as much as faculty members do," he said. "Maybe not initially because people like myself who have kids and have a place where they're happy may not pull their kids from there, but employees with new kids or new employees would definitely use it."

"Another thing that would be beneficial, for those of us who use a home daycare where one caregiver may get sick or go on vacation, something on campus that allows for a one-day or one-week dropoff."