Childcare: a critical resource in dire need

B y S idnee S hort

Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — Help wanted ads are everywhere now. From the classifieds to the internet and even in some windows. It seems as if all businesses are trying to hire. A significant number of the workforce has disappeared because of the lack of childcare.

The Northern Hills, and the entire state of South Dakota, has been facing in recent years, centers around child care; the lack of availability, funding, and costs.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in July 2022, South Dakota had a population estimate of 909,824. This is almost a 100,000 person increase compared to April 2010.

Data from the Bureau from 2017 to 2021, showed that there were an estimated 50,930 South Dakota children younger than 6, or 73.9 percent, of them who had all available parents in the workforce. There were 107,905, or 80 percent of children from ages 6 to 11 with all available parents in the workforce as well.

So, presumably, at least 50,930 children needed daytime care of some sort at that time.

2021 to 2022 data from the South Dakota Department of Social Services (DSS) shows that there were only 47,742 available slots for state-certified childcare.

Put simply, there’s a child care shortage across the state, and the Northern Hills hasn’t been immune to this issue in the slightest.

The South Dakota Department of Labor (DOL) sent data to the Pioneer saying that there are 28,050 households in the Northern Hills area, and 17,876 total families.

The counties that make up the Northern Hills area are Butte, Lawrence, Meade, and Perkins.

South Dakota Kids Count data center shows that in 2022, the Northern Hills area had a capacity of 1,226 slots for licensed or registered child care, and 700 slots for licensed before and after school care. Since 2021, child care slots have decreased by 36, and after school care has increased by 220.

“I’ve had a handful of very qualified candidates who wanted to join our team, but childcare is nearly impossible to find in Belle Fourche and Spearfish. And, so they had to (give up) the job offer,” said Angie Besler, HR and Communications Manager for Albany Farms.

Albany Farms is the new ramen noodle factory located in Belle Fourche, that plans to employ 300-500 people. The factory currently has 110 employees.

Besler believes a lack of childcare will persist for a while, and said she hasn’t heard anything about new facilities or care centers opening up.

“I just know it’s affecting the economy in Belle Fourche, holding it back from growing as much as it could grow.” Besler said.

In total, the Northern Hills is home to 35 state-certified child care facilities and five after school programs according to the DSS.

Prairie Hills Child Care Center has been providing care as a licensed day care center in Spearfish for 11 years now. Barb Cline, executive director of both the center and Prairie Hills Transit, said she’s noticed issues in the industry ever since she opened the center.

“When we built this building, we chose to add a childcare facility so we would have childcare for employees.” Cline said. “One of the things that I would hear is that, ‘we can’t get childcare at the hours you’re asking us to work.”

Currently, the center has 59 kids enrolled, with only 41 kids being allowed on-site at a time, due to the child-to-staff ratio. The center is considered a daycare center, so it can have 21 children and above, depending on the amount of employees working.

They have a waitlist of 150 kids, and have had a waitlist since opening the center more than a decade ago.

“She’s got moms that let her know they’re pregnant before they tell their spouses.”

Cline said about Childcare Director Karley LaFountain.

LaFountain said that most of the waitlist is made up of pregnant moms.

“There’s some people who wait until (their child is) born, and don’t realize how bad the childcare crisis is, and then they panic because they can’t go back to work or, you know, they’re trying to work from home and that doesn’t work very well.” LaFountain said.

The center’s priority goes to the pregnant moms who already have kids at the center, so they can keep families together.

Cline said there have been a few instances in which parents have had to take their kids to separate centers due to the lack of availability at each center.

In the fall of 2022, LaFountain and Cline had to turn away 10 kids.

“Going into the school year we had to tell several families that they were gonna have to find alternative care.” Cline said. “Which right now is problematic because if they were going to … Kid’s Club … (during) vacations, it’s closed, so you have parents who more than likely are having to take vacation to stay home with the kids.”

The child age range for the center is 6 weeks to 12 years old.

Located in Deadwood, The Northern Hills Alliance for Children’s Director Kaylee LinnWellford said that the licenced day care center can hold a maximum of 50 kids, and it currently fell. The center has a waitlist of 20 to 30 kids right now, with at least six pregnant moms on the list.

In the past, Linn-Wellford said the center used to offer drop-in care, and a pay-by-thehour system.

“We just have so many kids on the wait, that we don’t even offer those hourly contracts anymore.” Linn-Wellford said.

It takes around one year for kids to get off the waitlist and into the program.

“Like, right now with our full classrooms, we won’t do another input of kids until the fall (2023), when our seven pre-K students move into kindergarten.” Linn-Wellford said.

The center offers spots for children ranging from 6 weeks to 6 years old, or going into kindergarten.

Kids Club Kids in Spearfish has been around for 29 years, offering before- and after-school care for kids ranging from those in kindergarten to 13 years old.

Director Sandy Tarrant said that she can enroll 100 kids at West Elementary, 100 kids at Creekside Elementary, and 95 kids at Mountain View Elementary.

Currently, each school ranges from 45 to 68 kids enrolled, with West Elementary seeing the largest number of kids in the program.

“Those buildings are seeing 42 (kids) a night. And 42 kindergarteners, (that’s) a lot.” Tarrant said. “So, the more staff I can keep on board and on the floor at a time, the better.”

Tarrant said she’s had up to 80 kids enrolled at West Elementary, but doesn’t like to do that due to staff-to-child ratio and changing schedules.

“We don’t always see (all the kids at one time) because they’re on rotating schedules. We’ve got parents that only need us one night a week, parents that need us three nights a week, or parents that need us from morning to night.”

Tarrant said. “Sometimes we see those kiddos more than the parents do.”

Between the three schools, there is a waitlist of 9-10 kids.

“Our program fills pretty quickly in the fall when we start school and then we have to say, you know, ‘you’re on a waitlist,’ and I try (to) get them moved off that waitlist as soon as I can.” Tarrant said.

A common occurrence with childcare centers is their inability to run at full capacity due to the lack of staffing. Many center and program directors cite the inability to pay employees a livable wage as the reasoning behind this issue.

The DOL provided statistics to the Pioneer regarding 2021 employment and wage rates for the Northern Hills area. When it comes to hourly wage rates, the mean of all occupations in the area is $22.48. The mean hourly wage rate for childcare workers is $12.03.

The mean annual wage rate for all occupations, according to the DOL, is $46,754, while the mean rate for childcare workers is only $25,015.

Prairie Hills Child Care Center starts employees at $10.80 per hour, which is the current minimum wage in South Dakota.

“For us, we can’t pay much more than minimum wage and still keep the rates where they are for the parents.” Cline said.

The center has 22 employees, with most of them in college for early and elementary education.

Under the age of 3, the center has five kids for every adult, and they have an adult for every 10 kids over the age of 3.

“I try to, a little bit, over-staff because if you have five infants by yourself, you know, it’s legal but it’s not ideal.” LaFountain said. “It’s stressful and they don’t get the care that they need.”

Cline and LaFountain said that all childcare staff have extensive training requirements to become state certified, and licensing and training costs’ are expensive.

Linn-Wellford, from the Northern Hills Alliance for Children, said the main crisis in the childcare industry stems from employee matters. She gave examples like only being able to provide a certain amount of income, not being able to hire as many employees as they could utilize, employees leaving due to the pay, and other aspects like that.

The center starts their employees at $10.95 per hour.

“If it was up to me, I would pay my employees so much more, because they deserve so much more.” Linn-Wellford said. “We can’t keep up with McDonalds or Walmart or these big corporations being able to pay their employees $14, $16, $20 an hour with no experience and no schooling needed.”

The center uses a similar ratio to Prairie Hills, with one adult for every five kids under the age of 4, and one adult for every 10 kids over the age of 4.

“I think it’s very important that kids have the maximum amount of time with one-on-one teaching skills, so we … kind of over staff.” Linn-Wellford said.

Childcare can never run on the bare mini - mum of staff, due to the possibility of somebody calling out, thus causing an incorrect ratio. If that happened, children would legally have to be sent home.

Linn-Wellford said the center is education-based, and even infants have lesson plans and schedules, and have to meet certain requirements.

“I just feel like parents bring their most precious thing in the world to us, and … the jobs that these teachers do are incredible, and I just wish that the industry had a higher standard of paying their employees.” LinnWellford said.

After school programs are seeing the same issues, if not worse, when it comes to staffing.

“It’s a crisis that we don’t have enough staff to service the kids we could.” Kids Club’s Tarrant said. “Especially with after school programs like mine, it’s more difficult, because we only have a few hours a day to offer (employees).”

Due to being open before and after school, Tarrant can only offer 20 hours per week.

The starting pay at the club is $11 per hour.

“It’s a great college job, but unfortunately the fast food chains and coffee shops and everything can offer more money than we can.” Tarrant said. “As a private nonprofit we’re not in it to make the bucks. We’re in it to take care of kids.”

The club has 25 employees, and tries to run a CHILDCARE Pg 15

10 to one ratio, as the state requires a 15 to one ratio.

If they had the funds, Tarrant said she’d like to start employees at at least $14 per hour.

“I just remind (parents) that I have to pay my staff. You know all those lovely people that work with your children … they need a way to live.” Tarrant said.

Tarrant said she’s been thinking about implementing childcare beyond the fifth grade for around four years.

“You can’t do it without people, and people require payment.” Tarrant said about expanding.

She said although it’s not a money hungry field, it’s still important that people earn a livable wage.

“You don’t get into this business for the money. If you do, you better check yourself.” Tarrant said. “It’s not a money-making industry, it’s a care provider industry, and I think you’ll hear that from nurses and teachers as well.”

Not only lack of workforce, but a lack of funding, prohibits existing centers to expand and increase their services.

Cline would like to expand services at Prairie Hills Child Care, but can’t due to lack of funds. As a nonprofit, like most centers, they rely heavily on grants and beneficiaries.

“We need a sugar daddy, or mama,” Cline said, laughing.

Cline has met with Spearfish Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), Monument Health, the city of Spearfish, and Black Hills State University (BHSU) about expanding childcare services.

“For us to go out and borrow $2 million, we’d never be able to make payments. And the parents would never be able to afford the childcare rates if we had to borrow money.” Cline said.

Putting expansion aside, daily costs of running a childcare center tends to get expensive as is. LinnWellford said that her center works in a deficit, and LaFountain expressed something similar.

“We always say that there’s no profit margin in daycare, and I was looking at it yesterday actually, and the national average is like a 6 percent profit margin for childcare. So, you’re barely breaking even every month between liability insurance and food and cleaning supplies and everything to keep up with state standards, or even just quality care.” LaFountain said.

While providers are struggling to keep up with paying employees, and providing quality care, parents are struggling to pay for that quality care.

According to the DOL, the mean annual wage rate for statewide South Dakota in 2021 was $46,808.

According to Kids Count, the average annual cost for a licensed center or facility is between $7,020$9,830.

At $7,020, this is 15 percent of an average annual wage. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that an affordable childcare threshold is 7 percent of a family’s income. At that rate, childcare would cost $3,277, putting a $3,743 gap between the lowest current cost and affordable cost of care.

As previously stated, the mean annual wage rate for the Northern Hills is $46,754. Finding no data on the average cost of childcare in the Hills, the Pioneer calculated the cost of the individual centers that were interviewed.

The average family attending Prairie Hills pays $1,200-$1,400 per month.

At $1,200 per month, or $14,400 per year, if the parent(s) were making an average annual wage, that would be about 31 percent of their income.

Putting that in a different perspective, Black Hills State University undergraduate tuition and fees is $8,763 per year, according to the website. Adding costs such as books and supplies, a room, and a meal plan, it brings the number up to an estimated yearly cost of $17,265.

“If you need to make more (money), you have to ask the parents to pay more, and it’s just a domino effect.” LaFountain said. “We don’t like raising rates, we try to do it every four-ish years, just with inflation and minimum wage increase, when we do have to do it, you know.”

Through the DSS, there is a child care assistance program, which is only available to families receiving care from state certified providers. To receive assistance families must meet certain work/school requirements such as: working 80 hours per month and are within the established income guidelines, or attend a minimum of 80 hours per month at a university. If a parent is pursuing an education beyond a bachelor’s degree, they’re not eligible for assistance.

According to Kids Count, Child Care Assistance recipients in South Dakota have declined consistently for a decade, dropping 41 percent between 2011 and 2021. No information was found on the exact reason why the number of recipients has declined at such a rate.

After extensive research, it seems as if the childcare crisis is nowhere near being solved. But, steps have been taken federally to try and alleviate some of the issues.

On Jan. 30, DSS announced that Gov. Kristi Noem has approved the release of $12.5 million in federal funding over the next year to “fuel the expansion and startup of new child care facilities in South Dakota.” The DSS will administer the grants.

Grant requests can be made for needs including: facility expenses, payroll and benefit increases, pre-operational health and safety resources needed to meet licensing requirements, and equipment and supply purchases.

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