GORHAM, Maine — Child care providers in Maine are seeing their monthly bonuses decrease due to so many educators becoming eligible for the stipends.
Maine's biennial budget allocates $30 million for tiered stipends for child care professionals as incentives to keep qualified workers in the field, and attract new employees.
It worked.
During the pandemic, child care professionals received $200 per month stipends. State lawmakers, including Senate President Troy Jackson (D - Allagash), pushed for the state to increase the stipends and make them permanent.
The result was a three-tier system that pays educators monthly stipends based on their education and experience. The policy took effect in earnest in December of 2023 due to what Department of Health and Human Services staff said in a memo to providers were "administrative delays."
DHHS data show in the seven months from November 2023 to June 2024, 729 more teachers became eligible for these salary supplements.
Because of the increase in eligible professionals, DHHS had to decrease the amounts of the monthly stipends for each tier in order to ensure every eligible professional received them. In FY '24, those stipends were $275 for the first tier, $415 for the second tier, and $625 for the third tier.
"The specific dollar amounts are based on this requirement as well as the number of workers in each tier and the available funding," according to press release from Governor Janet Mills' administration.
Heather Marden, the co-executive director of the Maine Association for the Education of Young Children, said the $30 million cap is a problem.
"I think on one hand, we can say, 'great, more educators are accessing it.' That's what the data showed us this year. 'Great, more educators are moving up in their tiers, so we're increasing educator quality.' We want to do those things," Marden said. "So it's this positive momentum, but on the flip side, as more people access it, it's making that pot of money smaller for everyone else."
At Seedlings to Sunflowers, a non-profit child care center in Gorham, owner Meghann Carrasco worries that the drop in monthly bonuses will create hardships for her staff. The new rates are $240 per month for Tier 1 (down $35), $360 per month for Tier 2 (down $55), and $540 per month for Tier 3 (down $85).
"Any organization in child care right now has to reflect and say, 'are we going to be able to continue to pay people the fallout,'" Carrasco said. "When you're making such a low wage, that $60 to $85 is so significant."
Carrasco said her staff makes between $16 to $20 per hour depending on the position, before receiving the stipends.
Marden said child care is stuck in a cyclical sustainability problem. Owners could pay teachers more by charging families more money for child care. Doing so could make child care unaffordable, causing families to find other means of care, including staying home. A lack of enrolled students could force owners to close down, leaving fewer options for parents who need that care.
"It's that constant struggle of educators can't afford to make less. Families can't afford to pay more. What do we do with that equation?" Marden said.
"It just feels like there's not enough passion at this point for people to stay in such a low-wage job," Carrasco said.
Marden and Carrasco proposed that the state should increase the total amount of funding, and that any unused funding could be rolled over into the following fiscal year.
DHHS spokesperson Jackie Farwell wrote in an e-mail, "Increasing funding for the program would require legislative approval. The Administration is always interested in working with lawmakers to consider ways to improve the program."
She said that since November 2023, more than 7,500 child care professionals have received these stipends.
"This program is part of $120 million in federal funding that Governor Mills has dedicated from her Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan and other sources to strengthen and expand child care options in Maine. As a result of these State and Federal investments, Maine is helping qualified professionals remain in the industry, rewarding teachers who have years of experience and higher credentials, and supporting programs to retain staff," Farwell wrote.
The Mills administration has made other investments in the child care profession, such as incentivizing construction of new and expanded child care facilities. Farwell said that has added as many as 5,000 new slots to serve Maine children. She said DHHS has also improved access to the Child Care Affordability Program, which helps eligible families pay for child care so parents can work, go to school, or participate in job training.
On the CCAP, the Department made two significant changes. As of July 1, 2024, the Department increased reimbursement rates for providers that participate in the program. It also increased the number of families who are eligible for child care subsidy, increasing income limit from 85 to 125 percent of the state’s median income (when adjusted for family size).
"Additionally, recent legislation phases in a number of changes to the program by 2030, including further expanding eligibility to families earning up to 250 percent of the state’s median income, and limiting child care costs to no more than seven percent of a family’s income," Farwell wrote.
Maine’s Child Care Affordability Program currently serves more than 3,600 Maine children, Farwell wrote.
"I know that the state budgeting is complicated and that there's a lot that goes into this, but we are not nearly close enough to the amount of providers we need in this field to cover child care for everyone in the state who are working families," Carrasco said. "A huge barrier to new centers opening is staffing."
"Child care can't go away. It's never going to be automated. You will never have safe, reliable care that is automated for children, so we need people," Marden said. "If people are going to work, and provide for their families, their young children are going to need access to care. And as an economy, we need to care about that together."