Child care provider says she’s out of pocket, with provincial funding late

While the B.C. government has started to give funding to daycares around the province, some providers are getting nervous that the funding hasn’t arrived yet.

Angela Heatley, owner of the Bouncing Babies & Toddling Tots Childcare, was approved for the NDP’s new child care fee reduction program, but still hasn’t received her money and said it has been incredibly stressful.

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She said her fee-reduction money for May had yet to come in and said she needed it last Tuesday. What’s more, she was told the payment process might have had an abnormality.

“Yesterday they said they were going to push the payment through as an emergency for me and that I should have seen it yesterday afternoon. Well, it never showed up.”

In February, the B.C. government rolled out an ambitious $1-billion new program to help families with childcare costs.

Providers that opted-in are required to reduce fees by up to $350 a month for each child by April.

In return for providing the discount, they would receive funding from the government to reduce those rates, plus an increase of 10 per cent for any space approved in the program, at the beginning of every month.

Wendy Lowe, owner of James Bay Childcare, said she didn’t get her May payment for the opt-in program until Wednesday, and said she was temporarily out hundreds of dollars in discounts that she had already passed on to parents.

“Fortunately we were able to make it work until we got the payment now, but I think going forward I’m very confident that it will be a lot more streamlined with the payments.”

Lowe said she assumed there would be some hiccups with the new program, but felt it was important to get the “ball rolling” for families to receive a discount.

While Heatley continues to wait for her funding to come in, others like Ashley Parkyn, owner of the Little Monkey’s Learning Centre, received her funding before the May 1.

She explained while she found the process to be “fairly easy,” she’s concerned about how the program might limit her if she needs to raise her rates in the future.

In the meantime, Heatley said this issue has left her in a lurch to meet her financial obligations.

“I’m at the point where I’m actually looking at having to take a cash advance off of my credit card in order to cover payments on my card that are going to be coming out,” She said.