Daycare facilities are receiving a federal funding boost that will help offset some of the costs incurred due to COVID.
Through the Safe Restart Agreement, each child-care facility in Alberta will receive $2,500 plus $200 for each licenced space, regardless of whether the space is being used or not due to restrictions on capacity. The funds will be doled out on Oct. 15 and Nov. 15.
Al Kafaji, owner of Busy Bees Daycare in Okotoks, said the funding boost will help recover some of the cost of health and safety protocols in the short term.
His centre normally has a capacity of 24 children, which has been reduced to 12 due to Alberta Health Services guidelines for daycare facilities. Operating at half-capacity has been hard on the bottom-line, especially because not all of the 12 permitted slots are filled as parents slowly return to work – or not.
“We’re very slow, but we’re picking up here and there,” said Kafaji. “I believe we started in June with maybe four or six children and now we’re about 10 on average, depending on how many come in that week.”
He said some children who once came full time, five days per week, are now coming two or three days, while others have not returned at all, others are pending, and a few new registrants have popped up.
With a smaller centre, he said he’s been lucky to have nearly all his spots fill within four months of re-opening. Some larger facilities with capacities in the 100-children range are struggling with only eight to 20 children returning, he said.
The federal dollars for Busy Bees will amount to about $7,000 each in October and November based on full operating capacity of 24, he said. While a total of around $14,000 sounds like a lot of money, he said it might help cover some of the costs the centre has taken on since re-opening with COVID policies in place.
“We’re following the guidelines, and there’s some impact with that,” said Kafaji. “We need to clean more, there are checklists to follow and extra time to complete sanitizing and other protocols.”
Kafaji had to bring on extra staff to monitor people coming in and out of the building, ensuring masks are being worn by visitors and running health checks for children and parents as they arrive each day.
In addition to cleaning supplies and the time it takes to thoroughly clean and sanitize equipment regularly, he said the centre has easily tacked on between $2,000 and $4,000 per month in extra expenses.
Busy Bees has been fortunate to receive government assistance, he said. Kafaji applied for wage subsidy to help pay staff when the centre re-opened, and he asked Holy Cross Lutheran Church, the centre’s landlord, to submit the paperwork to have rent subsidized as well.
“Our landlord has been wonderful, they’re willing to compromise,” he said. “They’re losing money too, because they rent out their halls and they haven’t been able to do that with COVID. The only source of income they have is from us, really, the rent we pay.”
With lower numbers, low rent, and subsidy help, he said Busy Bees will be okay until at least the end of the year, but it’s difficult to predict beyond that.
If grants and subsidies go away while COVID still has parents keeping their children home or the government limiting capacity in facilities, he said a lot of daycare centres could be in trouble.
“It’s all unknown, but we hope for the best,” said Kafaji. “If the government takes this away, a lot of people are going to shut down. We don’t want to see that.”
