Lack of funds sinks daycare

For the parents of 6,700 children around Indiana who will be dropped from city government-administered childcare programs Oct. 1, the most pressing question is obvious: Now where do my kids go while I'm at work? \nTrisha Rus-nak, a single mother of three who lives in the Bloomington area, is one of the 150 local participants in the city of Blooming-ton's Child Care Assistance program who will be dropped from the program's rolls next month.\n"I feel very comfortable with the daycare my kids are at and I don't feel like switching is an option. But I don't want to use my mother for daycare either," Rusnak said. "So I have to tough it out. It's going be a bigger strain on my finances, though."\nThe Bloomington City Council reluctantly passed a bill last Wednesday to cut the program's funding by over 70 percent.\nAnthony Pizzo, vice-president of the City Council, said dropping the program was not just.\n"It's unconscionable to put the burden on these families while the economy's going down," Pizzo said.\nBut City Council member Tim Mayer said this is not the city's doing, this is not the city's money. Bloomington is dropping people from the program due to overall funding problems. \nMoney for the program comes from the federal government routed through the state, which allocated $63,000 to the city for the program. Last year, the city received $233,000.\nThis loss is going to be felt most by people like Rusnak.\nRusnak works one full-time job and spends some of her evenings during the week working part time out of her home. Rusnak said she spends a total of 55 hours each week working at her jobs. \nWhile Rusnak's oldest child, age 12, stays at home by herself after school, her two youngest -- one four years old, the other only 15 months -- go to a home daycare facility while Rusnak is at her full time job. \nThe city's Child Care Assistance program pays $20 per week, part of the total childcare costs for one of her kids. She's been on the program for about 10 months.\nIndiana and other states fund childcare programs with Federal block grants -- money that was earmarked for social service spending in 1996 as part of major changes to the welfare system. The 1996 legislation mandated that welfare recipients had to work or enroll in job training in exchange for childcare vouchers and other governmental supports. But in 1996, the economy was growing robustly. \nThe reason people are now losing their childcare can ultimately be traced to a weak economy, said Cindy Collier, the director of policy and planning for Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration, the state agency that administers and distributes the federal grants to cities around the state.\n"The problem now is that we have so many people in Indiana who need services," Collier said. "A year ago, 37,000 families were getting some form of assistance. Today that number is 53,000. But we have the same pot of money to use since 1996. We have the same amount of money and an increased need for services, so we have to serve the neediest folks first."\nQualifying for different government programs, like Bloomington's Child Care Assistance, is based on federal income guidelines. Currently, the federal poverty level is based on a family of four earning $18,000 a year or less. \nCollier said that in the recent past, childcare programs in Indiana covered families up to 140 percent of the poverty level, but now the state can only afford to cover families who earn up to 127 percent of the poverty level, or $22,860. \nAnd 4,000 families under 127 percent of the poverty are on waiting lists for childcare support. \nWith the same amount of money dispersed to a greater number of people, Bloomington will receive approximately $60,000 for its childcare program, down from around $230,000 a year ago. \n"The economy is in the first sustained period of uncertainty since the 1996 overhaul of welfare," Collier said. "The question now is how will tough economic times affect low-income people who are transitioning to jobs but still need support?"\nIt's going to be tough for parents getting kicked off the program, said Stephanie Laughman, a local daycare provider. \nShe runs four daycare homes in the Bloomington area, serving 48 kids total, or 12 at each house. Three or four of her families will be dropped from the program at the beginning of October. \n"A lot of parents who have two or three kids in childcare are going to be in trouble," Laughman said. "People are going to quit their jobs to take care of their kids. They can't afford to pay half their paychecks to child care. Of course, I can't provide care for free either," she said.\nUntil there's further resolution, Laughman said she plans to work with parents and create a sliding payment scale so those families dropped from the voucher program can keep their kids in her daycares.\nThe state government, meanwhile, plans to lobby with other states for funding levels that reflect the current need for childcare and other social services this fall. \n"The federal program must reflect the need," said Collier. "If folks are going to work, they're going to need childcare and these vouchers are a good way to get started"