Child care shortages could be addressed by a combination of actions to help families with subsidies and help providers work through what is currently a daunting bureaucratic process, according to a new task force report released by the Alaska Department of Health.
Recommendations to expand child care options came in the second and final report of a task force established last year by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The Governor’s Task Force on Child Care report, released on Dec. 27, follows an earlier report released last year.
Altogether, they contain 56 recommendations for action.
“The recommendations put forward are not only responses to immediate challenges but also a roadmap for a resilient infrastructure that serves both working parents that need reliable, safe care, and the licensed facilities that provide that care,” Heidi Hedberg, commissioner of the state Department of Health, said in a statement. “Removing barriers, especially in rural areas, and supporting the child care workforce, are other areas we expect to see long-lasting improvements, as a result of this important work.”
Child care shortages and costs have been cited by businesses as a major workforce challenge. The problems became more severe after the Covid-19 pandemic, when Alaska lost 10% of its licensed child care providers, according to state officials.
Dunleavy created the task force as he declined last year to support more funding in the state budget for child care.
A study conducted by McKinley Research Group that helped guide the task force revealed varying gaps between the actual costs borne by families and the subsidies they receive, ranging from under $100 to several hundred dollars a month, depending on the type of child care received.
It also revealed cost differences based on geography. For example, monthly preschool costs per child in Anchorage averaged $1,186, while in northern Alaska the average was $1,749, according to the study.
To help address the problem of affordability, one recommendation is for geographical cost-of-living adjustments to be applied to parents’ income, said Leah Van Kirk, a department health care policy adviser. Living costs are higher in rural Alaska than in urban Alaska, and the McKinley Research Group report showed that child care costs in rural areas are particularly high.
Currently, a geographic cost adjustment is applied to subsidies paid for child care costs, but that does not extend to the income levels that are used to determine subsidy eligibility.
“Your income would have been considered the same whether you lived in Bethel or whether you lived in Anchorage,” Van Kirk said. The new report “recommends that we acknowledge the cost of living that’s different in some of the more rural areas of the state where we know cost of living is higher.”
Another recommendation focuses on making child care jobs more attractive. “It would be so when a parent works in a child care facility that they would qualify for a subsidy for their own children to attend child care,” Van Kirk said.
Some of the important information revealed in the study concerned the cost differences between home-based child care and that provided in child care centers, Van Kirk said.
“One of the things that was confirmed for us is that for child care providers, having a home-based licensed child care is a stronger business model, or more affordable,” Van Kirk said. “The cost of delivering care is less.” Because of that, home-based child care could be encouraged, especially in rural areas, she said.
Still, there are some potential cost-saving solutions that involve centers, according to the task force report. One of the recommendations is to explore the possibility of providing child care in schools or school district buildings. Sites like vacant classrooms could be assessed for use by providers who might want to open up new child care centers, potentially lowering costs and making the service more feasible, Van Kirk said.
“We know that, above staffing, the cost of a facility definitely is one of the highest costs for child care providers,” she said.
The Anchorage School District, which has struggled both with employee recruitment and with declining enrollment, is already considering setting up such a system. Care for school employees could be provided in school buildings, according to the district.
The task force also recommended that the state consider establishing what is known as a Tri-Share system, with government, employers and parents sharing costs. That system was pioneered in Michigan and has since been adopted in other states.
Other recommendations focus on streamlining the process for licensing child care providers and hiring child care workers. Some of the solutions involve modern technology. For example, safety screening of potential workers required the creation of physical fingerprint images that were mailed to law-enforcement agencies to use for background checks. To speed that now time-consuming process that can delay the hiring of staff members, the state just acquired digital fingerprinting equipment, using American Rescue Plan Act funds to do so, Van Kirk said.
The Department of Health has already taken action on several recommendations in the two reports. The acquisition of digital fingerprinting equipment is one example, Van Kirk said. The department is also developing an online Child Care Information System to help streamline licensing, employment, notices to families and other bureaucratic processes.
Some action has come in the form of new regulations.
One new set of regulations that went into effect on Oct. 9 allows for designated caregivers to be in charge when administrators of child care facilities are off-site.
Another new set of regulations, aimed at lowering hurdles to hiring child care workers by broadening qualifications, was published on Oct. 9. Public comments were mixed, with some that were supportive and some expressing concerns about unqualified workers.
Additionally, the Legislature earlier this year passed Senate Bill 189, that expanded families’ eligibility for subsidies and offers tax incentives for employers investing in child care. Those provisions were originally in House Bill 89, which passed that body, but they wound up merged into the wider-ranging Senate bill.
• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. She covers environmental issues, energy, climate change, natural resources, economic and business news, health, science and Arctic concerns. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
