State senate candidate Corrine Hendrickson of New Glarus entered the District 17 race after years of seeing her advocacy and testimonies to better child care in the state fall on deaf ears. Even now, with the fall primary less than four weeks away, she’s still on the campaign trail, listening to fresh voices and those she’s long been acquainted with.
When visiting Christina’s Family Daycare in Monroe July 8, Hendrickson brought up that most voters have data centers as one of — if not the top concerns.
The final Bridge childcare payments went out this week across the state, which has helped keep the industry afloat since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Without the Bridge payments, or any other government assistance, providers will have no choice but to raise their rates in order to remain viable — putting already paycheck-stressed families in a tighter spot. Many families have already sacrificed a second working parent to stay at home with the kids, as costs (from insurance to food, toys, books and sanitization products) keep rising both at in-home daycares and at childcare centers.
Hendrickson knows all about the problems facing the industry as a former longtime provider herself, and former president of the Green County Childcare Network (GCCCN). The GCCCN represents both family and group childcare centers, allowing them to work together in a common interest rather than be silently competing against each other.
“That’s what’s been happening a lot over the past year, people losing their jobs or quitting their jobs and getting certified so they can take care of the kids. But you can only have three,” she said.
She added that since federal dollars began rolling in during the pandemic, all of the net gains in providers have already been lost.
Jillynn Niemeier, current president of the GCCCN, checked in with Hendrickson at Christina Becker’s in-home daycare and asked, “What’s your plan if you win?”
“For childcare, it would be to create a full system from birth to 12, and I ideally would like to make sure that we include the stay at home parents and encourage the family, friend and neighbor to get regulated so that they can get funding, too,” Hendrickson said. “The Center for America Progess just put out a report yesterday (July 7) of what their plan was — and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s my plan!’ It would allow people to be more flexible and then the provider just gets paid.”
Gov. candidate Francesca Hong (D-Madison) is a proponent of coming up with a hybrid version of the Vermont and New Mexico plans. Both states recently implemented programs that take a small percentage of payroll tax dollars from businesses and corporations and put it toward the childcare industry. Hendrickson is well versed in both plans, and was one of the people Hong personally reached out to in order to help herself understand it better.
“Vermont’s is less than a half of a percent, and Francesca Hong is around 3/4 of a percent — 0.75 percent. Francesca’s is true universal childcare where the parents don’t have the copay,” Hendrickson added.
Other ideas, like co-op models, are good ideas, Hendrickson said, but a co-op model itself “isn’t going to solve the problem.”
