EXCERPTS
Daycares located inside Toronto schools are warning parents that already sky-high child care fees could go up if the centres lose a city subsidy that is set to expire at the end of this year.
Nearly 350 licensed child care programs on school properties access an occupancy grant provided by the City of Toronto that helps pay for space rentals, a fee not covered under a subsidy historically provided by the Ministry of Education.
City council will vote this week on whether to continue this funding into 2020, as the city must formally notify participating school boards of any change to the grant formula by the end of August.
Toronto District School Board chair Robin Pilkey told child care operators in a letter that if the fund is cut, school boards will have to recover lease costs directly from the daycares.
“The elimination of this grant would have significant impact on your centre and families,” wrote Pilkey.
A city staff report, which will be presented to city council later this week, notes that since the province’s funding formula treats child care providers as tenants rather than as a part of the education system, the approach “does not support a continuum of learning or the stabilization of early years and child care programs located in schools.”
The city allocated annual funding of $5.8 million as part of a bridging strategy in 2018 and 2019, but this year’s budget noted that the funding would be a significant pressure in 2020 given the “ongoing uncertainty” of provincial child care funding.
According to the city’s report, if the school-based centres are forced to swallow lease costs, the hike would be passed onto parents already paying full fees for child care and could cost an additional $350 per year per child. Families who receive a subsidy would not be impacted since the per diems paid to the centres would be adjusted to reflect actual costs.