Daycares are adjusting to state cuts to the On My Way Pre K program. Officials are concerned affordable, accessible childcare will be harder to come by and that it will have long-term implications for the economy.
On My Way Pre K is a state-funded program that provides free schooling for 4-year-olds from income-eligible families so they can attend high-quality a pre-k program the year before they begin kindergarten.
Recent legislation is limiting the number of children who can utilize the On My Way Pre K program: a total of 2,500 kids across the state can enroll in the program. Last year, more than 6,000 kids participated. Other changes include adjusting the family income eligibility from 150 percent to 140 percent of the poverty line and limiting voucher money. A parent or guardian must be working, in school or attending job training to qualify; searching for a job does not make someone eligible anymore.
Until recently, the program used funds from the state and the federal government, including federal pandemic aid and Child Care Development Fund money, to help families pay for childcare. Now, only the state will fund On My Way Pre K, and will do so more sparingly, even though childcare costs have risen 29 percent since 2020. Each voucher will provide just under $150 a week; the average cost of pre-k childcare per week in Indiana is about $176. Families are now expected to pay the difference.
The Family Social Services Administration stated on its website that these changes will “ensure the program remains high-quality, sustainable, and accessible to those who need it most.”
But these cuts are hitting childcare programs hard. Compass Early Learning Center in Bloomington is already operating in a deficit to help families afford childcare. About 60 of the nearly 100 kids at the center are on the sliding fee scale and pay about $75 a week for care that normally costs over $350 a week.
Katie Broadfoot, executive director of Compass Early Learning Center, said while only six kids are currently in their On My Way Pre K program, there normally are between 20 to 30 participants at any given time. For those six kids combined, tuition will cost about $83,000 this year; that number could double in the coming years if more kids qualify for the program. Broadfoot said she’ll get that money from fundraising and a potential corporate sponsorship program.
She also assured that quality of care will not change.
“My prerogative right now is to figure out how to make all of the math work without placing that burden on families to have to pick up, because the families that our agency was set up to protect should not be the ones that have to carry on the financial constraints,” Broadfoot said. “We will fundraise for them. If they're on On My Way Pre K, they will still pay $0 out of pocket for the cost of their care, and we will fundraise and make up that difference.”
One organization is expanding and building a new location to help make childcare more accessible. The Weston School will open its fifth location in Speedway this fall. Omar Khan, CEO of Weston, said they chose Speedway because it is considered a childcare desert. Amid state cuts, he felt it was especially important now to provide another childcare option in this location. The new location can accept just over 200 kids, and could serve families who are on the Child Care Assistance waitlist. About 23,000 families are currently on the waitlist.
“We’re putting our money where our mouth is and saying we're willing to do the work and we're willing to provide a facility of this magnitude and quality,” he said, “but we need more help from the state, not less help from them, in order to be able to support programs of this caliber going in all these historic childcare deserts.”
But with cuts to On My Way Pre K, Amy Van Bruggen, senior of quality and compliance at Weston, said they won’t be able to serve as many kids as they could have. They’re losing families who now don’t qualify for the program anymore. Van Bruggen could not provide an estimate on how many students they have lost due to funding cuts, nor how many students have utilized the On My Way Pre K program at the Weston School in the past.
“In the Speedway community, we're losing families that we haven't met yet,” Van Bruggen said. “We are getting phone calls from single moms, single parents, foster families, families that commute to this area to work or bypass it on 465, and want to bring their children here, but they can't, because it's just not attainable at this time because of cost.”
Khan and Van Bruggen said they are still doing what they can to support families. They are considering waiving enrollment fees and implementing fee scales. But they still need help from the community and state lawmakers to make childcare affordable.
“It can't all be on the backs of private, high quality childcare business owners,” Van Bruggen said. “We're going above and beyond to do everything we can on our end to provide this high quality but we need the community and the state to pay attention and invest in our children and our future, not make cuts.”
A recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce report found that Indiana loses about $4.2 billion annually due to lost job productivity, absenteeism and income tax. Khan stressed that investing less in childcare ties into this bigger economic issue.
“If invested in properly, it can help support the workforce of so many companies that are waiting to come to Indiana but don't have anywhere for their workforce to have childcare,” he said. “So, supporting childcare helps support that workforce, which will ultimately impact and create a huge difference in getting back that $4.2 billion in lost economic revenue to the state of Indiana.”
