Chippewa Valley leaders seek solutions for child care 'crisis'

May 21—EAU CLAIRE — Child care centers are struggling to find workers.

Parents are struggling to find child care.

Businesses are struggling to find employees, in part because potential candidates can't secure care for their children.

The struggle is real, and the interconnected challenges have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

That backdrop helped set the stage Friday morning at Pablo Center at the Confluence for a presentation focusing on child care challenges in the Chippewa Valley as part of the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce's Eggs & Issues series.

"I would say it's a crisis," said Renee Ernsting, director of Child Care Partnership at Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council.

The core issue during an extremely tight labor market, Ernsting said, is that providers have a difficult time paying enough to attract and retain workers while still keeping the cost of care affordable.

"It's a hard sell when you're paying $12 an hour," she said, referring to the typical hourly wage for child care teachers, at a time when people can make $15 an hour working at fast-food restaurants.

A Chippewa Valley Child Care Task Force led by United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley formed late last year and has been studying the issues surrounding child care and discussing potential solutions. The task force, led by United Way executive director Andy Neborak, is composed of child care resource partners, business advocates, higher education professionals and health care system staff.

The task force has learned that providers often can't raise tuition enough to cover the level of wages that would help them attract more workers.

"If you're fighting that battle for workforce and you don't have a whole lot of tools in the toolbelt so to speak to try to recruit those people, that's a huge problem," Neborak said. "There is no quick answer, but there are short, baby steps we can take to try to be innovative and look at solutions to how we can slowly move the needle."

Gayle Flaig, administrator of two Eau Claire child development centers for Regis Catholic Schools, said the challenges have grown increasingly difficult in the past two years.

"Turnover in child care is typical, but now we're just not getting the applicants," Flaig said. "We've had an enrollment freeze since last August because I just don't have the staff."

It's unfortunate, Flaig said, because both the Regis and Genesis Child Development Centers have at least 40 families on waiting lists for slots and are forced to turn families away every day. And she knows many of those parents are desperate for care after calling multiple providers and hearing a similar message.

"My heart breaks for those families, but you have to be able to maintain your quality," she said. "I want to say yes to everyone, but I just can't. It's just a really big balancing act."

Alaleh Wilhelm, an employee at Western Dairyland, knows what it's like to be on the other end of such calls since giving birth to a daughter in 2020.

After initially planning to return to work right after maternity leave and putting her daughter's name on waiting lists at several centers, the pandemic put Wilhelm's plans on hold when many people were asked to work from home.

When Wilhelm and her husband started seeking a child care again in April 2021, it took them six months to find a slot. Then, just 2 1/2 months after enrolling their daughter, Inara, now 22 months old, in a center, the facility permanently closed due to the twin challenges of COVID-19 and the inability to find teachers.

"The center closed right before Christmas break, and there were 30 other families in the same boat," Wilhelm said. "We were all desperately calling around trying to find care."

While she and her husband were lucky to find a slot within a couple of weeks, she knows it took longer for other families.

The challenges haven't gone away even at times when the couple had a contract for care. They've had to adapt on the fly at times after getting a call informing them their daughter's classroom would be closed for several days because a student or teacher tested positive for COVID-19. And Wilhelm's new provider recently informed families it is reducing care hours because of staffing concerns.

"It has all been very stressful," she said, noting that she is lucky to work for an employer that has been extremely flexible and accommodating as the family worked to arrange child care.

The math helps tell the story of the crunch facing regional parents seeking care for their children, as the number of regulated child care programs in a 10-county area of west-central Wisconsin has declined from about 1,100 in 2015 to 340 in 2022, according to Child Care Partnership. That 69% drop, the result of family providers leaving the industry, has been largely offset by an expansion of slots at centers.

A recent provider survey by the agency revealed that Eau Claire and Chippewa counties currently have 175 open teaching positions and 17 closed classrooms. In Eau Claire County alone, 85% of programs have waiting lists for slots for a total of 1,550 children.

Finding a way to raise wages for teachers is a key to filling those open positions at existing centers, said Laura Lash, business child care advocate at the partnership.

The access problem is even more dire in rural areas, Ernsting said.

Kimber Liedl, business engagement director for the Wisconsin Early Childhood Initiative, said the child care shortage is an issue statewide.

While pandemic relief programs have gone a long way to keep many child care providers in business, Liedl said, community and business leaders across the state are coming together to seek long-term solutions as awareness increases about child care access issues.

Among the efforts showing promise, she said, are programs that offer incentives for child care startups and those that call for employers to offer on-site child care or buy slots at existing providers.

The Partner Up! program, for example, focuses on supporting partnerships between businesses and child care providers by offering funding to businesses that buy slots at regulated providers. After business and grant contributions, families get care for their children at little or no cost.

As a child care administrator, Flaig understands the factors that make teacher recruitment difficult — it's a relative low-paying job that can be stressful at times — but she also knows the work is important and extremely rewarding.

"Making a difference in the lives of children," Flaig said, "is a big deal."

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