Oregon child care provider struggles to cover costs and retain staff

This is the story of Angie Garcia, who runs an early childhood program in Portland, Oregon.

My name is Angie Garcia, and I am the owner and director of an early childhood program located in Portland, Oregon.

In my collaboration with other providers, there are some consistent messages that we hope our country and the leadership will consider. It’s important to acknowledge that all businesses are critical to the success of our economy. And it is also critical that we acknowledge that every industry will be relying on the strength of our child-care system. Childcare is a common thread, a critical infrastructure that every industry will need in order for our economy to rebound.

When it is time to return to work, just as Italy is discovering, it will be very difficult to do so if we do not have a solid, strong, and robust childcare infrastructure to support it. Without childcare, no other industry can perform to its fullest capacity. When America is ready to go back to work, we will need providers like myself to be ready. The whole country is reliant upon our ability to be responsive, to expand and contract based on the needs of every industry across the country. The importance of our work cuts across all gender, socio-economic, and racial lines.

The question facing us all now is, how do we do accomplish this? The top priority is that providers must retain their highly-trained staff. If members of the staff are not kept on payroll, if they do not have a steady income, they will seek other employment. If we loose our trained staff, it will take too long to hire the necessary staff to be ready to serve the families who will need us in order to go back to work.

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was a great attempt to allow businesses like mine to keep their staff on payroll. Yet the challenges were and still are:

• Most providers did not receive PPP loans. Getting these dollars was dependent upon a provider having a relationship with an SBA lender. Many did not. Now, providers who did not receive these funds are now making plans to close their business and are now seeking other opportunities because they must be able to feed their families. American can not afford to let these businesses fail.
• Those of us who did receive the funding have found that the program not flexible enough. PPP requires that we use 75% of the funds on payroll, leaving us with 25% to cover our overhead costs, which just isn’t enough. Many of us are afraid we will end up having to repay this loan. Making it a grant would ease these fears.
• This money is running out, and families are still not back to work. How do we keep our doors open? How do we keep our staff and not loose them to other jobs?

As we consider how this next round of relief could work to best meet our country’s needs, child care providers must be considered as one of its’ highest priorities. If we fail to do so, Americans will not be able to go back to work, and our economy will stall. We just can not afford to let this happen.