By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Governor Dan McKee Wednesday began laying the groundwork for his plan to quickly spend some of the $1.1 billion in COVID aid from the federal government, convening a roundtable discussion with about a dozen people involved in childcare, one area he said has been under funded since before the pandemic.
McKee has pledged to spend 10% of the $1.1 billion earmarked for Rhode Island in American Rescue Plan funds, after it was learned last month that Rhode Island had spent none of its ARPA money.
“It’s not a good place to be for the state of Rhode Island to be the last state in the country to actually use those funds,” McKee said. He also plans to spend some of the money for housing needs and small businesses.
McKee said childcare and early learning programs are the underpinnings of helping parents return to work to help rebuild the economy, struggling since the shutdown that began with the coronavirus pandemic in the first quarter of 2020.
At a daycare center in Warwick, McKee heard from childcare providers and others who talked about the difficulty in attracting workers and reopening facilities.
“We’re on a shoestring. I have four classrooms … but I cannot open, and I have a waiting list, because I don’t have enough staff,” said Lori Wagner, operator of a day care center and co-chair of the RI Child Care Directors Association. She outlined some of the difficulty in finding enough workers.
“They can make more money at Target, McDonalds, it doesn’t matter where it is. But the stress of the job, they don’t have that kind of stress. We’ve got kids that are hitting, kicking, biting, they’ve been torn from their parents, they’ve been home for a year,” Wagner said.
The governor and experts maintain that taking care of the state’s youngest children is a key to helping to rebuild the workforce and the economy.
“We know that if parents don’t have reliable, high quality child care, they can’t confidently leave their children and go to work,” said Elizabeth Burke Bryant, Executive Director of Rhode Island Kids Count, who facilitated the roundtable discussion.
“We also know that the early learning that occurs in child care centers and early learning centers across the state is really the precursor to the rest of education,” Burke Bryant said.
McKee has not yet revealed how much money he is aiming to earmark for child care and early learning programs.
“I don’t think there’s any specific dollar number, we’ll have that budget, the supplemental budget prepared for the General Assembly, as they have requested us, in a week’s time, something like that,” McKee said.
Also attending the roundtable were two legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey and Rep. Mary Ann Shallcross Smith, (D-Lincoln, Pawtucket), owner of a group of daycare and education programs for infants, toddlers, preschool and school age children.
