Pay Equity Funding for FY25 cut from budget

[Anonymous]

If you're in DC, has anyone's daycare sent any messaging about PEF being cut or any advocacy to get it back? Worried our center will either loose its staff, become unaffordable or close.

[Anonymous]

There is a rally tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. at Samuel Gompers Park. We're expecting over 1000 educators and supporters to rally to call on the Council to restore the Pay Equity Fund to the budget. The Mayor has cut $300 million from OSSE Division of Early Learning, which is over half of the budget cuts for FY25.

Many programs have been enlisting parents to email or submit testimony to the Council in support of the PEF, and many will be attending the rally to support the teachers.

https://actionnetwork.org/events/lets-rally-for-educators-reunamonos-para-educadores?link_id=1&can_id=e0336c6281414b208fa760b9dfba423c&source=email-the-update-march-21-dc-budget-delayed-childcare-crisis-deepens&email_referrer=email_2267389&email_subject=__-rally-to-save-child-care-friday-8-am-__

Please spread the word!

[Anonymous]

Yes. As PP above said, centers are helping spread the word.

[Anonymous]

More information resources can be found here: https://under3dc.org/2022-pay-equity-fund/

These 2 paragraphs sum it up pretty tidily from the educators' POV:

"Bowser’s budget proposal hurts early educators, most of whom are Black and brown women. By permanently cutting pay and health benefits for more than 4,000 educators, Bowser will single-handedly be responsible for educators fleeing child care for higher paying jobs. Early educators could see their pay reduced by tens of thousands of dollars, returning many of their incomes to just a few dollars above the minimum wage.

This is doubly betraying promises that the Mayor and DC Council made to early educators. It reneges on the commitment in the Birth-to-Three For All DC Act to raise early educator salaries. And the District required educators to meet new higher credential and degree requirements at the end of last year, which many have worked hard to do - now the Mayor proposes to break the promise of fair pay as compensation."

Attend a rally, call the Deputy Mayor for Education, do what you can!

[Anonymous]

AS a former director, this is the nightmare situation I figured we'd be in - how was this every sustainable?

But..... you now have teachers who have been making quite a bit more $ for the last 2 years and that will be wiped away as of September 30 (fiscal year starts Oct 1). Centers will NOT be able to maintain those salaries. The teachers will go back to their salaries that they would have been getting if there was no pay equity fund. Centers CANNOT raise tuition enough to maintain those much higher salaries - and parents couldn't afford to pay that tuition!

Yes, I think teachers will leave - of course going to Maryland schools won't work because their pay is just as low as DC's pay was - in some cases worse - and they never did a Pay Equity thing. And there is a reason I am no longer directing an early childhood program - having to hire so many teachers will be impossible. I just don't know how the directors are going to do this! Hiring during/after Covid was already much harder than before 2020, and it was hard before Covid, and MUCH HARDER now - after the pay equity goes away, it was be 300% harder.

It's a disaster - but tell me how this wasn't going to happen? You can't NOT raise taxes, NOT decrease services other places, AND pay so much more $ to the childcare center teachers and have that be sustainable.

It's just a disaster and it's going to end very badly for centers, teachers and then parents when centers don't have enough teachers to keep all the rooms open.

[Anonymous]

Hopefully parents and society reckon with the true cost of childcare instead of just exploiting underpaid childcare workers (who are disproportionately WOC)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully parents and society reckon with the true cost of childcare instead of just exploiting underpaid childcare workers (who are disproportionately WOC)

Most parents who use child care centers cannot pay the true cost. The centers won't exist if they charge that amount. This is something that should be subsidized by taxpayers, but it is expensive.

The advantage Maryland has is the COL is lower. However with universal prek coming to MD that is going to be very disruptive.

[Anonymous]

It’s expensive to have someone else watch your kids so you can have a second income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s expensive to have someone else watch your kids so you can have a second income.

Our policymakers want people to work, not stay home with their kids.

Btw parents do not choose how much teachers get paid. In fact, they often do not know how much teachers get paid. Providers decide this based on how much parents are willing to pay, their expenses (which are often determined by state regulations about ratios) and the wages workers are willing to accept (and in the case of national chains, the interests of their shareholders). You'll often see people on DCUM and other parenting forums expressing shock when (if) they learn that their high-priced daycare or preschool is not paying the teachers very well or giving them benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AS a former director, this is the nightmare situation I figured we'd be in - how was this every sustainable?

But..... you now have teachers who have been making quite a bit more $ for the last 2 years and that will be wiped away as of September 30 (fiscal year starts Oct 1). Centers will NOT be able to maintain those salaries. The teachers will go back to their salaries that they would have been getting if there was no pay equity fund. Centers CANNOT raise tuition enough to maintain those much higher salaries - and parents couldn't afford to pay that tuition!

Yes, I think teachers will leave - of course going to Maryland schools won't work because their pay is just as low as DC's pay was - in some cases worse - and they never did a Pay Equity thing. And there is a reason I am no longer directing an early childhood program - having to hire so many teachers will be impossible. I just don't know how the directors are going to do this! Hiring during/after Covid was already much harder than before 2020, and it was hard before Covid, and MUCH HARDER now - after the pay equity goes away, it was be 300% harder.

It's a disaster - but tell me how this wasn't going to happen? You can't NOT raise taxes, NOT decrease services other places, AND pay so much more $ to the childcare center teachers and have that be sustainable.

It's just a disaster and it's going to end very badly for centers, teachers and then parents when centers don't have enough teachers to keep all the rooms open.

Exactly this. If they save it this year, it will be killed off in another year or two. It's simply too expensive and it's not sustainable. But it will create havoc for DC childcare. This is what happens when you implement very expensive policy experiments on a grand scale.