PORTLAND, Maine — "We already operate on a really tight margin," Tamara Gallagher, owner of The Growing Tree Childcare, said.
She said that margin is so tight, the center had to close temporarily over the winter after a series of storms, but not because of the weather.
"There was no emergency to Portland, so everybody was still working. It was just some rain," she explained.
A State of Civil Emergency was declared by Gov. Janet Mills across the entire state, which activated the emergency pay ordinance in Portland. That meant all businesses had to account for hazard pay, increasing the minimum wage from $15 per hour to $22.50.
Gallagher said that pay increase was nearly impossible to manage.
"We can't charge parents more because they're not able to pay it, and even if they could, we wouldn't do that to them," she explained.
Gallagher is teaming up with a woman from another child care center to lead an effort called Keep it Local, which requests an amendment to Portland's ordinance. The change would allow the city to choose when to institute hazard pay on a case-by-case basis, instead of following the state's lead.
"If it is just a statewide state of emergency that doesn't affect Portland, that's not fair to institute a hazard pay across the board for all these small businesses," Gallagher said.
Ethan Strimling is a former Portland mayor who works with the Maine Democratic Socialists of America. He said this proposal doesn't account for people who work in Portland but live outside the city.
"There are a lot of workers who live in Gorham or Westbrook that have to travel through some of those treacherous areas to work here in Portland," he explained.
Strimling said he can understand why a small business like The Growing Tree struggle with emergency pay, but he said he believes the amendment would mostly benefit big corporations that can afford the hazard pay.
"They could've offered alternatives other than a proposal that's basically going to gut it," he said. "There's only a proposal to exempt all businesses, that includes Amazon, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Hannaford, all of these businesses in the city."
But whether the amendment passes, local businesses like Gallagher's are looking for some sort of solution before the next season of storms arrive.
"It's not fair to institute this all the time. It needs to be on a local level," Gallagher said.