Daycares located inside Toronto schools are warning parents that already sky-high child care fees could go up if the centres lose a city subsidy that is set to expire at the end of this year.
Nearly 350 licensed child care programs on school properties receive an occupancy grant from the City of Toronto that pays for space rentals, which is not specifically covered by the province’s funding formula.
City council will vote this week on whether to continue this subsidy into 2020, as the city must formally notify participating school boards of any change to the grant formula by the end of August.
Toronto District School Board (TDSB) chair Robin Pilkey told child care operators in a letter that if the fund is cut, school boards will have to recover lease costs directly from the daycares.
“The elimination of this grant would have significant impact on your centre and families,” wrote Pilkey.
A city staff report that will be presented to city council later this week notes that since the province’s funding formula treats child care providers as tenants rather than as a part of the education system, the approach “does not support a continuum of learning or the stabilization of early years and child care programs located in schools.”
“Once again it falls to the city,” Toronto councillor Gord Perks told CTV News Toronto. “It shouldn’t be on the city, but in a crisis like this where thousands of families risk losing their child care space, we’re going to have to step in.”
The city allocated annual funding of $5.8 million as part of a bridging strategy in 2018 and 2019, but this year’s budget noted that the funding would be a significant pressure in 2020 given the “ongoing uncertainty” of provincial child care funding.
“What [Premier Doug] Ford does, he only talks about cuts, cuts, cuts,” said Councillor Jim Karygiannis. “We in the city aren’t in the same mindset. We’re in the mindset that reaches out to families.”
According to the city’s report, if the school-based centres are forced to swallow lease costs, the hike would be passed onto parents already paying full fees for child care and could cost an additional $350 per year per child.
Families who receive a subsidy would not be impacted since the per diems paid to the centres would be adjusted to reflect actual costs.
“We can’t destabilize full-fee-paying parents’ child care experience in school-based child cares to balance our budget on the backs of budget on the backs of subsidized parents,” said city councillor Shelley Carroll.
In response to questions about whether the province would subsidize occupancy costs, the Ministry of Education told CTV News Toronto that the city is receiving more than $460 million in child care funding this year and that it is up to individual managers and boards to allocate that money to various programs.
John Tory’s office told CTV News Toronto that the mayor is committed to working to keep the cost of child care affordable.
“The mayor is working with the TDSB, the province and council on this issue to make sure we continue to invest in families and child care,” said spokesperson Don Peat.
If city council votes to continue the subsidy into next year, it would then need to confirm any longer-lasting support for the fund during the 2020 budget process.
