Child Care Center event highlights need for funding

Dawn Mayerski, executive director of the Mount Kisco Child Care Center, and Director of Development Paula Backer, are two key cogs in maintaining the center’s programs. (Martin Wilbur photo)

By MARTIN WILBUR

By all accounts, the Mount Kisco Child Care Center is doing exceedingly well. It enjoys full enrollment with about 150 children in its care on a daily basis, is well-staffed and has had a stellar reputation in the community for decades.

But with summer over and families returning to their routines, the cost of safe, reliable child care remains an untenable burden for many households.

“I think people think about it as babysitting, but it is so much more than that,” said Dawn Meyerski, the executive director since 1998. “We are building a foundation for all learning that happens once they get into those schools, and the service we provide for families is essential.”

Despite having enjoyed the support of the community for many years through donations and fundraisers, the center is not immune to challenges. Over the past year its leaders have focused on workforce compensation in hopes of retaining the teachers and staff members who work with the children each day, Mayerski said.

When she began her career at the Child Care Center in 1983, Mayerski was paid a $10,000 salary — and she took the job because it was about $2,000 more than what other centers were offering. That computes to an equivalent of about $32,500 in today’s money, according to one online inflation calculator. Pay hasn’t improved all that much since then.

One of the key reasons for the poor pay for child care workers is the lack of public funding, although there are grants that facilities apply for, Mayerski said. But there are no guarantees that a center will obtain grants to help offset expenses.

“There is no federal funding, there is no state funding, there is no county funding,” she said. “All of the money that comes into child care centers are based on parent tuition, and there’s a threshold to what parents can afford to pay, and so that tuition is what I use to pay their salaries. You can’t charge people enough to pay them what they’re worth.”

Paula Backer, Mount Kisco Child Care Center’s director of development, said another obstacle is child care staffing lost about 40% of its workforce in New York state following the pandemic, and much of that workforce has not been restored.

“That is why workforce compensation has become this critical pressing issue, as child care has not recovered that workforce,” Backer said. “There are many centers that closed and there are many centers that can’t open as many classrooms because they can’t staff them because they are unable to attract people.”

To help maintain the center’s strong program of caring for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, it will be holding the 21st annual Feed Me Fresh: An Edible Evening, on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 5:30 p.m., at Ivanna Farms in Mount Kisco. Feed Me Fresh is its biggest fundraiser of the year, with proceeds paying scholarships for families that cannot afford the tuition.

The more than 300 people who attend each year are treated to a cocktail hour and dinner using locally grown products and entertainment. This year, there will be honors bestowed to board member Christie Noelle Krase and Mary Ann and Gary Rivera, owners of Landscape Concepts, who have provided the floral designs for Feed Me Fresh since 2019.

The money raised from the event is always put to good use. A family pays $2,500 a month for an infant to be cared for and $2,000 a month for preschool children. If two parents work full time and have two children under 5 years old that need care, that would be roughly $50,000 a year. About half of the children who attend the center have their families pay full tuition, Mayerski said.

“Our mission is high quality care for every child, so events like Feed Me Fresh and all of the work that Paula does, we raise close to $800,000 a year to provide the scholarships for low-income families,” Mayerski said.

The acute need for quality child care centers is evident in the center’s waitlist of about 200 children. Strict staffing levels mandated by the state also plays a factor. One teacher is needed for every four infants; one is needed for five toddlers; and one teacher is required for seven preschoolers.

With its support from the community, the Mount Kisco Child Care Center, which opened in 1971 and has been located on Radio Circle since 2002, has been quite fortunate, Mayerski said.

“I have been able to keep the program staffed and we have not had to reduce classrooms or reduce class sizes, so we have been one of the lucky ones,” Mayerski said. “There are those out there that have not been so lucky. So we have been able to run at full enrollment.”

Backer explained that child care hasn’t received government support, likely because of an antiquated idea of two-parent households able to live off one income, while in reality many families struggle to live on two incomes.

Despite the struggle for funding, Mayerski said child care is critical to the nation’s economy.

“People can’t go to work if there’s no child care,” Mayerski said. “Today, it is an economic issue.”

For more information, tickets and sponsorships, visit mkccc.org.