Business-Supported
Child Care
An Overview
C
hild care is an economic development issue
for our businesses. We see it all of the time: our young, energetic
employee has a child and their attention shifts. Young parents
weigh paying tuition between $175 and $390 a week for child care (in St.
Johnsbury, Montpelier and Burlington) with leaving the workforce to
stay home with their child. This isn’t only a women’s issue. Increasingly,
fathers are the stay-at-home parent if it doesn’t make economic sense to
continue working when their entire paycheck goes to paying for child
care. When parents are worried about the health and safety of their
kids, they are distracted throughout the day. Productivity suffers when
their employees’ child care is unstable or inconsistent. As a result, many
parents struggle with staying in their job if child care is unaffordable.
Employers who can offer quality child care to their employees are more
likely to attract and retain a stellar workforce. John Simard, the Chief
Financial Officer of software developer Vermont Information Processing
(VIP) in Colchester says that he faces stiff competition for the best and
the brightest in the tech field in Chittenden County and considers his onsite child care center as one of the key attraction and retention points for
his employees.
The Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children is encouraging the creation
of regional business-supported child care efforts. The concept was born
when we heard from business leaders who want to a gold standard
employer. They understand the challenges that their employees face in
finding and affording high-quality child care, particularly for infants and
toddlers. They would like to offer a child care benefit to their employees
but can’t carry the financial risk of an entire center on their own—or they
simply don’t know where to start. There are several opportunities for a
business to support its employees in this way:
Scholarships. Businesses can dedicate financial resources to a fund
for child care scholarships. This can be for your employees specifically, or
for community children.
Human Resources Benefits. There are benefits that you can
offer your employees, including managing a flexible spending plan for
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dependent care, offering a stipend to offset your employees’ child care
costs, and offering general information about how to find high quality
care.
Business Consortium Model. Work with other likeminded businesses in your area to build a business-supported child
care consortium. The business consortium model is when five, 10, or
20 companies pool their resources. They can offer
a benefit to their employees that will improve
employee productivity, morale and retention:
quality, affordable child care in a location that’s
convenient to their place of work that addresses
the gap between affordability for parents and
affordability for providers. The first two pilots are
starting in the South End of Burlington and in
Montpelier in 2016 and 2017, respectively. To achieve
a business-supported child care consortium, each
employer commits to an annual amount that helps
to balance the cost of offering high-quality care and
guarantees their employees a lower-cost child care
slot. The employee has the reassurance of knowing
that their children will be in a high-quality setting
at an affordable price and the employer has a motivated, focused and
productive employee.
John Simard, Chief Financial
Officer of VIP in Colchester,
considers his on-site child
care center one of the key
attraction and retention
points for his employees.
The Permanent Fund is committed to supporting businesses as they move
forward with any of these three opportunities in order to create a thriving
community and a prosperous economy in Vermont.
Founded in 2000, the Permanent Fund (permanentfund.org) is a
philanthropic organization that partners with other early childhood
organizations to promote access to high quality, affordable early care and
learning in Vermont. The Permanent Fund is the parent organization
of two early childhood initiatives—Let’s Grow Kids and Vermont Birth
to Five—which are supported in collaboration with two other major
philanthropic organizations: The A. D. Henderson Foundation and The
Turrell Fund.
Susan Elliot
[email protected] | 802.324.5590
Rebecca Copans
[email protected] | 802.922.3452
3 Court Street, Middlebury, VT 05753
permanentfund.org