Child care harsh on budgets

Some work, some study and some teach -- but all raise a child.\nBut high prices for some programs and long waits are creating challenges for those people who rely on child care on campus, according to some University officials and students close to the subject. \n"It's an issue that needs to addressed and it hasn't been in years past," said Paul Rohwer, moderator of the Graduate and Professional Student Organization, which represents graduate students on campus. "It's an extra burden on graduate students that they can't find affordable child care on campus." \nThe topic of child care has seemingly spread across the campus recently, with multiple student groups, administrators and departments contributing to the discussion. \nAt the core of the dialogue is the Office of Campus Childcare Support, which oversees child care services in five facilities on campus, providing full-time care for 210 children, as well as shorter, part-time services for those who need it. \nThree facilities are nationally accredited and staffed with professional employees, and two others are co-ops, where parents work and receive a reduced rate. \nBut strong demand for infant and toddler care, combined with the already high cost of those services, has created hardships for some parents said Tim Dunnuck, the office's coordinator for child services. \nAround 350 children are on waiting lists for the five centers' care, he said. Some people wait months or years to enroll, he said.\n"Parents will put child on a waiting list many times before their child is even born, and a lot of time those folks still won't get in," he said. \nThe price of infant care is $10,000 annually, while full time preschool care costs about $7,500 per year, he said. \n"At those prices, we're still either the lowest or second lowest in the Big Ten depending on what ages you're looking at," he said. \nDuring a recent budget conference earlier this month, Dunnuck asked for $392,000 from the University to add three additional classrooms for infant and toddler care in the Campus Children's Center facility and one more for the Hoosier Courts Cooperative Nursery School. He said such classrooms would accommodate 50 additional children in the infant and toddler mixed aged group. \nHe also requested funds to help increase starting teacher salaries from $22,900 to $27,000. \n"Everyone agrees there's a need for more care, child care availability," said Carol McCord, assistant dean for the Office of Women's Affairs, which is searching for funds both internally and through external sources to help pay for care. "We have physical plant space for four more rooms -- (the) funds that we're all requesting are funds to turn those empty spaces into child care-ready rooms."\nMcCord said her office has already received word that a previous request for a University loan to renovate a room in the Campus Children's Center has been approved, and she said it would provide space for eight additional infants or toddlers. \nBut she said just as crucial was finding a way to help reduce fees of such infant and toddler services, which cost more because they require larger numbers of staff members. While plans are still being suggested, some options have included increasing the student fee, although its unclear by how much, or attempting to increase a campus subsidy, among others. \nStudents currently pay 34 cents of their student activity fee to pay for child care, generating $25,500. The University pays 17 percent of the child care costs on campus, or $191,000, according to a December 2005 child care report written for the committee for fee review. \nDunnuck said he would like to see more funding from the campus, including subsidies to fund tuition assistance and scholarships for child care, although he acknowledged hardships of such plans. \n"I'd love to increase the support from both campus and students, but I'm also aware that you can only expect so much from either," he said. \nPart of Dunnuck's recent proposal included a request for a yearly $121,000 subsidy from the University, to be initiated during the 2007-2008 year, that would be used to reduce the costs of care. \n"That would help bring the cost down so the parents wouldn't have to pay an outrageous fee," he said. \nBut McCord said the issue was complex, and cautioned that no group on campus, nor the University, should be blamed for potential problems in child care. \nShe said her office's goal was to simply find the funds to help campus members succeed in their own goals, one of the reasons the Office of Women's Affairs began a baby-sitting list, designed to give faculty members an option for quick care when emergencies occurred.