Childcare programs to lose major grants in spring

The BCG is a grant that pays for wage top-ups to help offset the cost of employee mandatory payroll contributions, like the Canadian Pension Plan and statutory holiday.

“Wages are limited because our only source of revenue comes from childcare fees. And it’s a high cost to operate this type of business. We have a lot of employees because we are bound to follow licensing regulations in terms of ratios. And so our staffing costs remain fixed. The ability to increase wages is really difficult as a result without increasing fees to families,” said the owner and director of Little Owl Learning Centre, Justine Mann.

While the government will continue to grant those top-ups, which can pay up to $6.62 depending on certification, they will no longer be paying for those taxes that come with the gross higher wages.

“The tax is now the responsibility of the employer and no longer will be offset by the government. Even though the government is providing the grant towards the increase in wage,” Mann continued. “Revenue to pay taxes needs to come somewhere. And like I said, we’re not a high net profit industry. So in order to keep our flow, it’s got to come from somewhere. So, unfortunately, it will probably be families that will be impacted in the long run because of the government again.”

Mann says that the top-ups add about $2,000 in wages per month, which she says would make a major difference in taxes.

“Just to balance from what we’re receiving from the grant currently and how many clients that we have, I’ve done a little bit of number crunching and it’s about $20 to $25 per child per month to offset the cost of the taxes we need to remit.”

The second program that is being cut is the Staff Attraction Incentive, which can grant either new employees or returning employees into the industry up to $5,000 in grants.

Mann says that it’s important to have programs like it to help keep people in the industry, which sees almost half of all employees leave it.

Children’s Services Minister Rebecca Schulz tweeted out this week that Alberta has among the most generous wage top-ups in the country.

She also added that in her meeting with childcare works, they were focused on the wage top-ups, and didn’t bring up either program once.

Mann says that it’s difficult for her to see these kinds of cuts, which is leaving families to make tough choices.

“It’s making it very difficult to be able to afford and be able to utilize licensed regulated childcare facilities. And it just baffles me as to how we’ve undergone so much research in the last 20 years as to the importance of one’s early years and 95 per cent of brain development happens in this time period,” Mann said sadly. “Yet, the government is making it even more increasingly difficult for families to be able to access this type of quality program.”

Both programs will end in April 2020.

by Hayley Ferguson

Childcare programs to lose major grants in spring

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