WAITE PARK – Reports indicate thousands of Minnesota child care providers have left the industry in recent years. Rep. Jeff Howe, R-Rockville, calls it a "crisis" and is among House members working to stem the loss.
Howe and several other legislators met with parents, child care providers and local officials Tuesday at Waite Park City Hall to, in part, address that subject.
"People have come to me in tears because they can't find a day care provider for their children," Howe said. "There just are not enough child care providers to meet demand and it is a real crisis, especially in Greater Minnesota. The people we heard from at the meeting provided more clues as to why providers are leaving the industry so we can work on improvements."
Members of the newly formed Minnesota House Select Committee on Affordable Child Care attended the meeting in order to gain information as solutions are developed.
"There is a lot of frustration among providers with over-regulation and inconsistency in the enforcement of regulations," Howe said. "This is chasing a lot of providers out of the industry. There is a clear lack of assistance from state licensers and even people from the Department of Human Services admit they have a lot of work to do in improving services and making licensers more customer-friendly."
Howe has experience as a fire-code inspector and said approaches he finds to be helpful in that realm could be adapted by people who enforce regulations related to child care.
"We need to remain vigilant in detecting serious violations such as safety violations or fraud," Howe said. "That said, we shouldn't be out looking for other 'gotchas' so we can slap fines on child care providers. The bottom line is the vast majority of providers are good, honest people who want to be in compliance with regulations and it should be our mission to help them. We should be assisting providers so they can avoid being out of compliance in the first place and showing them what to fix if they are."
Coincidentally, the Waite Park meeting took place on the same day it was announced child care providers overwhelmingly voted down – 1,014 against, 392 in favor – unionizing the industry. Only around 25 percent of the child care providers – those receiving state assistance for children they care for – received ballots.
"The providers made it clear where they stand on that issue," Howe said. "It has looked all along that unionization was being pushed on providers even though they didn't want it and the voting results send a pretty clear message."
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