Children's Center hourly rate to increase by 3%
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Associated Students’ board members voted on Tuesday to approve fee and program changes to help offset increased operating expenses for the Children's Center.
Dave Edwards, the ASI executive director, said that the change was primarily driven by increases to the California minimum wage, which has been going up about a dollar a year since 2017. Edwards said keeping the center staffed with teachers and student employees is the most significant expense in running the facility. Inflation was also cited as a factor.
Several members questioned how the center calculated the percentage of increase because the numbers provided did not quite add up.
"If you do the actual math here, related to also increasing the amount of hours, it ends up being around 20% including the expansion of hours," said Naman Shah, the member representing the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
Christopher Carlsen, ASI board treasurer, expressed concerns about whether any increase should be applied since the center is still experiencing reduced occupancy due to the pandemic.
"I just thought that since it wasn’t the same occupancy rates as we had two years ago, that it wouldn’t make sense increasing it. I get that there’s inflation that’s happening, but if we’re not providing the same amount of care as we did two years ago, then I don’t see why we should increase the rates," Carsen said.
In the end, two members voted no, and five abstained. With 10 voting yes, the new fees were approved.
Edwards said that in addition to the 3% hourly rate increase, another change will affect the weekly rates paid by some families. Until now, for the families that needed full-time care, the weekly rate charged was effectively the hourly rate times 35 hours.
On average, however, those families were utilizing 42 hours per week and sometimes more, Edwards said.
Under the new plan, weekly rates will now reflect the higher number of hours, in addition to the 3% per hour increase.
Edwards and other board members each stressed that the number of full-time families that would be affected by the higher increase was minimal at this time.
An important distinction made by Lydia Palacios, director of the center, is that the children who require full-time care typically belong to faculty/staff families, not the children of student parents.
Another factor cited by those in favor of the increased fees, were the results of a parent survey that found most families said they would prefer more frequent but smaller, incremental price hikes instead of larger, less frequent ones.
According to the ASI resolution, hourly rates will increase anywhere from 15 to 24 cents, depending on the child's age. Weekly rates will go up at least $65, and as much as $92 for the youngest children.