By Thia James

Daycare spots in demand in P.A.

Mar 20, 2015 | 6:44 AM

When the provincial government announced the 2015-2016 budget on Wednesday, no new funding was announced for child care spaces. 

The government is increasing its funding for operating costs by $2.2 million. This, it said, brings the total amount of funding for 2015-2016 to $52.7 million. The province funds more than 14,200 child-care spaces.

“The 2015-16 Budget will see a pause in the expansion of both child care spaces and Pre-K programs, due to the fiscal constraints of this budget,” it said in the budget document.

In Prince Albert, there are operators which are facing high demand for the spaces they already have.

At Children’s Choice Daycare, the four locations that are already open are full and a fifth location – which will open this spring – is already at 90 per cent capacity.

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“We do have waiting lists,” said executive director Gail Szautner. “Primarily, those waiting lists consist of people … who are putting their names on when they find out they’re pregnant to hopefully ensure they get a spot when the child turns 18 months.”

She said when the daycare knows far enough in advance, they can plan to take those children in when someone does leave and another space becomes available.

 There’s very little turnover in spaces, according to Szautner and she said “pretty much everyone is full.” She added that when you need something immediately, it likely will be difficult to get something.

 “A lot of children come when they’re toddlers, when they’re 18 months, and leave when they’re 10 [years old], 10 or 11.” Szautner added that their enrollment is very stable.

For those who are on the wait list, the spot goes to those who have been on the list the longest – first come, first serve.

At Small World Daycare, space is tight for children in certain age groups. They can only take four school-aged children at a time. Right now, there are six children in the kindergarten age group that are moving up into school-age. That’s creating a dilemma, its executive director said over the phone on Thursday.

The opposition’s take on child care

Opposition finance critic Trent Wotherspoon described the government’s move not to include additional child-care spaces in the new budget as scrapping its “already modest commitment of growing child-care spaces by 500 this year.”

He said this is the wrong way to go.

At the same time, Wotherspoon said the government will be adding three new MLAs in the next election at the total cost of $1 million each year.

“If you think of the cost for those four more MLAs that we don’t need and [that] million dollars, that right there in itself could have funded 250 child-care spaces across Saskatchewan.”

If the NDP were to form the government after the next election, Wotherspoon said they would work towards “building” child-care spaces, look at changing funding levels for child-care facilities.

“But really, it would be a matter of making this a priority. It’s something that is a priority to us, and then working directly with parents and communities and child-care providers to expand the number of spaces and improve access to all these spaces for Saskatchewan people.  They deserve nothing less.”

Last summer, the Saskatchewan government announced it would be allocating 500 new child-care spaces.

It committed $2.2 million for more than 500 new child-care spaces in the 2014-2015 budget, and since 2007, it funded 4,935 new child-care spaces.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames