Reopening at partial enrollment could send some Alabama day cares out of business for good.
“These are small businesses that operate on very narrow margins,” said Stephen Woerner, executive director for the nonprofit VOICES for Alabama’s Children, which has been working with day care operators statewide. “They have to be full to make any money.”
Day cares across Alabama have been receiving government subsidies during the lockdown, but as they reopen and payments are once again tied to enrollment, many centers will struggle to survive as parents keep children home and even some employees decline to return to work.
Gov. Kay Ivey lifted restrictions on Alabama’s child care centers last week, allowing centers to operate at full capacity. But only about 27% of Alabama’s 2,417 day cares were open as of mid-May, according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR), which regulates day cares and has been surveying day care owners around the state.
And most of the day cares that are open are caring for significantly fewer kids, around 30% of their pre-covid enrollment on average, said Woerner.
“At the end of the day, if they have to close, Alabama suffers,” said Woerner. “We’re not going to get the workforce back to work if we don’t have effective child care providers.
“They’re a crucial piece of getting this economy back open.”
Woerner estimates a third of Alabama’s child care centers may never open without significant help.
Camille Bennett owns two daycare centers in Florence, Ala. She opened their doors this past week, after deep-cleaning the facilities and training her staff on new infection-prevention procedures.
Before COVID-19, she had around 48 children between the two centers; right now, only 21 have returned.
“Even when we were limited in capacity (due to the previous state health order), what I was finding is I wasn’t overflowing with parents clamoring for spaces,” she said.
Some of the parents of her children are still laid off work; others are scared to send their children back and risk infection, she said.
Alabama DHR received $65 million in federal funding to improve child care access for families that qualify for subsidies. That money came as part of the CARES Act passed by Congress.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, DHR has been using that funding to continue partial payments to child care centers that accept children who qualify for subsidies, regardless of whether those children attend or whether the center is open. The money has also been used to provide new subsidies to health care workers and first responders, according to DHR.
The partial subsidy payments have helped child care centers remain afloat, said Bennett. Day cares get 50% of the government subsidies they received pre-covid, no matter how many kids now attend. But if that payment stops as centers reopen, receiving 100% of the subsidies for the handful of children who return may not be enough money for those daycares to survive.
“What I think will happen is centers will open, but parents are terrified,” Bennett said. “We’re still not going to get all our children back, and that’s going to really, really hurt the industry.
“So many child care providers cannot survive that hit with no help.”
A decision hasn’t been made yet about whether those sustainability payments will continue, said Daniel Sparkman, a spokesperson for DHR.
Compounding the problem, day cares have had trouble getting their workers back, said Woerner. In some cases, unemployment payments are higher than their previous wages.
Many are concerned for their own safety. Child care providers are often older, and most do not have health insurance through their jobs, he said.
And in Alabama, the majority are African-American, a population with a statistically higher risk of death from COVID-19.
Intensive cleaning and the use of protective equipment like masks and gloves are part of new guidelines from the CDC and the Alabama Department of Public Health for the safe reopening of childcare centers. But cleaning products and PPE can be hard for day care directors to find in local stores.
“If they can’t get PPE and the cleaning supplies, there’s not effective way for them to open,” said Woerner.
Woerner said DHR has been doing a good job on the regulatory side of things. But, he said, he’d like to see the state allocate some of its federal stimulus money specifically to help the child care industry, treating it like they would treat any other essential business.
“There’s an opportunity for us to recognize the essential nature of child care, like manufacturing or any other industry we support,” he said. “These providers are doing God’s work and doing the best they can, but they’re terrified for their staff’s safety, for their organizational sustainability, and for their kids.
“They’re going to open because they have to, and they’re going to go out of business.”