N.J. is getting $697M for childcare. Here’s where advocates want the money to go. – NJ.com

A New Jersey congressman and childcare providers and advocates held a roundtable Thursday to discuss incoming relief for the state’s childcare providers coming from the American Rescue Plan.

U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist., a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, met with Cynthia Rice, a senior policy analyst for Advocates for Children New Jersey, Keisha Wright-Daniel and Azizah Arline, both childcare providers, and Sister Donna Minster, the director of children’s services for Camden County over Zoom.

“I was a young, single dad,” Norcross said, “and I remember having to drop my son off at seven o’clock in the morning that we’d literally be waiting at the door for it to open. And it just reminds me of those challenges that every parent faces, making sure they have access to childcare.”

The childcare relief for the state is part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus law, called the American Rescue Plan, signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11. New Jersey and its municipalities will get $10.2 billion, including $697 million in childcare relief, with funding able to be used for personnel costs, PPE, equipment and supplies, rent, mental health support and more.

Cynthia Rice, at Advocates for Children New Jersey, spoke of the incoming funding as a lifeline for an industry that has been essential long before it was declared as one during the pandemic.

“It has always been essential. Essential to families, to children, and to our economy,” she said. “You ask any mother who had to cut back from or leave her job over the last year because she had no one to care for children.”

The childcare industry has had a lack of funding for decades, with many operators getting by on razor-thin margins, she said. The incoming federal aid will help stabilize funding and the workforce, with an increase in wages, she said.

Finding qualified staff was difficult before the pandemic, Rice said. Now, it’s become even more of an issue for many childcare providers. The average salary for an early childcare educator in New Jersey is nearly $24,000, she said.

“And they keep saying the same thing: we can’t find help,” Rice said of childcare providers. One operator recently told her, “I shouldn’t have to compete with Costco, but I am, and I’m losing.”

Keisha Wright-Daniel is the director of C.A.R.E. for ME Children’s Learning Center in Pennsauken. She said before the pandemic, her center was struggling to stay open.

Roughly 90% of her families at the center receive childcare subsidies, with the subsidies not covering her mortgage, supplies, and other operating costs. When the pandemic hit, she wasn’t sure her center could remain open.

Funding from the CARES Act, the first federal COVID-19 relief package, wasn’t enough, but helped Wright-Daniel’s center stay open for essential families, she said. Now, aid from the American Rescue Plan will help her pay for increased teacher wages.

“In order for children to receive quality care, it has to start with the teachers,” she said. “If you have teachers who can’t pay their rent, who can’t feed their own children, nine times out of 10 they’re not going to be able to fully focus on other people’s children.”

Sister Donna Minster, the director of children’s services in Camden County, emphasized the incoming funding as crucial for a service that can’t be done remotely and is critical for working parents, and subsequently, the economy’s recovery.

She said she’s hopeful for the industry’s future as it receives funding and attention.

“I mean, never before has childcare been on the top, top billing of anyone’s agenda,” she said, “so I’m very hopeful that it stays there and we maintain the support that it needs to really be a viable business and a quality program for the development of our children.”

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Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.