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EXCERPTS
Parents could see a $500-a-year fee hike per child if Toronto stops
paying the rent at 373 school-based non-profit daycare facilities.
The proposal would save the city $3.2 million this year and next
while hitting full fee-paying parents, who would see a minimum 5 per
cent increase, the city's budget committee was told Tuesday.
"For many families, especially those with two children in our
care, they would be forced to make personal sacrifices or withdraw from
child care altogether," said Donna Spreitzer, director of the 140-space
Jackman Community Day Care in Riverdale.
"Please don't pull the rug out from under child care," Spreitzer said.
Parents would pay an extra $2,064 a year to enrol three children
-- an infant, toddler and kindergartner -- in the daycare facilities at
Earl Haig and Bowmore schools, bringing the total annual cost to
$43,000, said daycare president Tracy Gonzalez.
"The result will be increased financial burden for families,
many who live paycheque to paycheque," said Gonzalez, whose facilities
accommodate almost 200 children.
"We urge you to please maintain the rent subsidy."
It's feared rents could go up even more if the city cancels the
12-year-old agreement that sees it pay rent for daycares located mostly
in Toronto District School Board facilities but also Catholic and
French schools.
"The boards have been articulating for years that the amount of
rent paid by the city does not cover their expenses," said Cindy
McCarthy, executive director of the 165-space Terry Tan Child Centre in
the Bloor St. W.-West Mall area.
"Therefore, the end of this agreement opens the doors for
immediate increases in rental payments as well as annual adjustments,"
McCarthy said.
Toronto children's services staff were under heavy pressure to
offer cost savings, but city council would be very short-sighted to go
along, said Jane Mercer, of the Toronto Coalition for Better Child Care.
"The answer has to be that our child-care system, already on the
brink and desperate for support in the provincial budget, cannot afford
to take any cuts at all," Mercer said.
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- reprinted from the Toronto Star