'No. 1 issue': Businesses, child care providers brainstorm ways to revive care shortage that is hampering employers

Apr. 14—SOMERSET, Pa. — As she entered a forum Wednesday to discuss Somerset County's child care shortage, Leah Spangler was backed by fresh data illustrating the nationwide issue.

Growing waiting lists and pricey child care costs have already forced 1.2 million women to exit the workforce since the onset of COVID-19.

Nine of 10 U.S. child care providers reported staffing shortages, with 41% closing classrooms.

As it turned out, Spangler — CEO of The Learning Lamp — only needed to ask for a show of hands at the meeting to measure the issue's impact locally.

Among a crowd of nearly 50 that included child care facility operators and Somerset County employers, all but one told Spangler they were struggling to fill jobs because parents continue to make the decision to stay home with their kids.

"It's become the No. 1 issue facing our industries in Somerset County," Somerset County Chamber Executive Director Ron Aldom said Thursday in a forum that drew officials from UPMC Somerset and several industrial park tenants.

With the group joined by statewide child care advocacy groups and the region's three state lawmakers — state reps Carl Walker Metzgar, Jim Rigby and state Sen. Patrick Stefano — in attendance, efforts are now shifting toward finding solutions.

Thousands of children not yet at school-age are able to receive accessible care. With day care staffing shortages ongoing, the county's 27 licensed centers are able to care for fewer children than they did two years ago, Spangler said.

'Can't afford to keep working'

Leaders from just one center, the Georgian Place-based Boys and Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania, indicated they have available space for additional after-school services.

The number of providers is also a concern — with 18 of those 27 in Somerset Borough, Windber or Meyersdale.

That leaves just eight in the remaining 1,000 or so square miles of the county — much of which is very rural.

"It's difficult because a lot of times we get employees ... but after five or six months, they realize they can't financially stay — they can't afford to keep working," said Jody Jurgevich, director of operations at Trinity Lutheran Child Learning Center, citing the low wages the facilities are forced to pay.

Spangler noted that some of The Learning Lamp's facilities operate at a loss — and that regardless of whether a facility is nonprofit such as hers, or for-profit, centers aren't money-makers and can't even compete with convenience-store chains or national grocers wage-wise.

Terri Siverling is the implementation and operations coordinator for the region's Early Learning Resource Center that covers the Cambria, Bedford and Somerset region. Siverling said efforts are underway to enable for-profit centers to acquire one-year grants to raise wages — for current and prospective staff.

In doing so, through the ELRC's partnership with the St. Francis Business Development Center and workforce development partners, participants would work on plans to enable them to sustain wages and provide other employee-retaining programs such as degree programs, Siverling said.

Aldom said other ways should be explored to allow child care facilities to cut overhead costs to free up money for higher wages.

He said the meeting prompted several businesses to bring up the idea of offering space inside an occupied industrial park building where a child care facility could serve workers' children.

Rigby said it's an idea worth exploring, pledging to look to see what kind of state support might be available to help defray startup costs.

"There are no easy answers to this problem, but we've got to work to find them," he said.

If left ignored, Pennsylvania's problems may only multiply, Rigby said, noting that 30,000 parents have exited the workforce due to child care concerns. Locally, in Somerset County, 1,500 children under five are classified as eligible for licensed child care but under-served.

He said he could support efforts to make it easier for providers to work with businesses to develop in-house facilities at lower cost,

"It's not just the economy," he said, adding that there are also children being left behind because of the shortfalls. "These are kids missing the opportunity to have their first teachers — to go to Kindergarten prepared."

Stefano said he'd also work with providers to see if there are burdensome regulations that might be modified to simplify the employment process.

Tracy Weaver, an outreach coordinator for the Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children also urged lawmakers to support their call for $115 million to be invested in early child care across Pennsylvania through the upcoming 2022-23 budget.

For the most rural areas, Spangler encouraged the development of more licensed home-based providers, saying there are support services The Learning Lamp can provide to them and other independent facilities across the region.

Spangler said collaboration among the groups is a must.

"This," she said of Thursday's meeting, "was a good starting point.

"We know we have a problems and now we can start focusing on addressing some of these barriers and working to find solutions," Spangler said.

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