When daycare kids outgrow their room under $10-a-day child care, what happens next?

At Playtime Co-Operative Childcare, infants move into the toddler room at 18 months. But when toddler spaces are full, Schaffer said children often remain temporarily in the infant room until another opening becomes available.

“You can only charge the $217.50 a month and you won’t get the government portion for that child,” she said. “For an infant, then we will lose the $559.41 each month for that child until there will be room for them to move into the next room.”

Schaffer said many operators remain uncertain about how those funding calculations will apply in practice when children temporarily remain in older classrooms despite explanations from the province.

“Do we keep them for $217 a month or do we terminate their spot and take a child that’s younger that’s going to fit into the category?” she said. “So then parents have no assurance that month to month that they’re going to continue with their space anymore.”

But Saskatchewan’s Education Ministry says providers will continue receiving funding for children waiting to transition into the next age group and argues the policy itself is not changing.

Assistant Deputy Minister Sameema Haque said Saskatchewan’s childcare licensing system already includes flexible spaces allowing children to temporarily remain in older classrooms while waiting for room in the next category.

To illustrate the policy, Haque pointed to a scenario where a toddler becomes preschool-aged but there is still no room available in the preschool category.

Under the province’s licensing rules, she said the child can remain temporarily in the toddler room without the operator violating licensing limits.

“The child would be funded based on their age,” Haque said. “But they will continue to be funded.”

Haque said the funding follows the child’s age category rather than the room the child physically occupies.

“So this is not a change. This is how it’s existed before $10 a day came in,” she said.

The ministry also pushed back against concerns the updated structure could discourage part-time or shared childcare arrangements.

Operators have argued the revised system reduces revenue previously generated when multiple children shared one licensed space on different schedules.

Haque said the province is still fully funding each licensed spot while allowing operators to collect parent fees from children attending on alternate days.

To explain the province’s position, Haque gave the example of two children sharing the same space on different schedules.

If one child is already occupying a fully funded space, she said operators can still collect the additional $10-a-day parent fee from another child using that same spot on alternate days.

“What we are not providing anymore is a duplicate grant for the same spot,” Haque said.

“So part-time or flexible usage of spots is already giving an operator significantly more funding than a full-time usage of a spot because they’re able to share that spot.”

Haque said the province views the model as a fiscally responsible way to stretch public funding across more Saskatchewan families while preserving affordability.

“We are fully committed to $10 a day,” she said.

Schaffer said providers are also frustrated by what they see as uneven funding between childcare centres despite similar licensing and staffing requirements.

“We all are following the same programming approach with it, but not all daycares are being funded equally,” Schaffer said. “There are daycares in Saskatoon that are getting $1,500 a spot, and then there are daycares that are getting $400, $600 a spot.”

Haque said those differences largely reflect fee structures established by operators before publicly funded childcare was introduced.

“The fee schedules were set up by the market conditions. The lease rate, the tenancy cost, the operating costs are different in different areas of the province,” she said.

Similar concerns are now surfacing elsewhere in Saskatchewan.

At a recent community meeting in Rocanvile, operators said some centres could face annual deficits ranging from $55,000 to $100,000 under revised funding model.

“These new changes that have come out from the ministry are going to have a devastating impact on these centres and homes,” Cara Werner, director of Dream Big Child Care in Rocanville and chair of Child Care Now Saskatchewan.

Education Minister Everett Hindley has said the province is trying to preserve existing childcare spaces while working within the limits of its agreement with Ottawa.

Meanwhile, Schaffer said the centre currently has “for sure over 100 children” on its wait-list.

Finding childcare spaces is already difficult, and she said, “unfortunately, I think it’s going to get harder now.”

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com

by Kenneth Cheung

When daycare kids outgrow their room under $10-a-day child care, what happens next?

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