Warmington Visits Rochester Child Care Center, Highlights Solutions for More Affordability
MANCHESTER, NH — In Case You Missed It, the New Hampshire Bulletin and the Union Leader highlighted Democratic candidate for governor Cinde Warmington’s recent visit to the Rochester Child Care Center.
During her visit, Cinde heard directly from child care providers about the challenges they face in recruiting and retaining staff, as well as the difficult decisions they’ve had to make to keep the doors open.
Cinde outlined ways to make child care more affordable and accessible for Granite Staters, including expanding eligibility for the Child Care Scholarship Program and investing in workforce tools that help keep classrooms filled.
Read more below.
New Hampshire Bulletin: Warmington backs state investment in childcare and pre-kindergarten on campaign trail
Cinde Warmington, a Democratic candidate for New Hampshire governor, outlined her priorities for childcare while touring a program in Rochester Tuesday.
The former executive councilor visited Rochester Child Care Center and participated in a roundtable discussion with Executive Director Cora Hoppe, Family Services Coordinator Anne Grassie, and Rochester Mayor Chuck Grassie. They discussed increasing state investment in early education, home-based care, issues with the state’s quality system, and the childcare scholarship program.
Warmington said that during her time as an executive councilor, she worked to reform the state’s background check process and reduce the red tape preventing family childcare programs from opening. She said that, as governor, she would make it a priority to secure a budget that enables more state investment.
“Our budget will reflect the priorities of our administration, which will be on the things that matter to the people of our state, on housing, on childcare, on making sure electric rates are under control,” she said. Warmington said she has already spoken with House and Senate leadership about what the next budget could look like if she is elected.
In a departure from the main priorities of incumbent Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, Warmington said a good use of funds would be to expand state-funded pre-kindergarten programs.
According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, New Hampshire is one of five states that do not offer a state-funded preschool program for 4-year-olds, along with Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
Warmington said she is in favor of reallocating money from the voucher-like education freedom accounts program to local public schools to pay for pre-K.
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During the roundtable discussion, Hoppe said the “biggest issues” are having to cut services to children and families due to funding cuts, “shut down” state contracts, and losing teachers to neighboring states that pay higher wages.
“(Families) are moving out of our state because it’s too costly for them to stay here,” Warmington said. “It’s just plain unacceptable, and we need to be prioritizing different priorities.”
Union Leader: Warmington backs more state support of childcare
Democratic candidate for governor Cinde Warmington of Concord said the state needs to provide more financial and political support to help expand childcare capacity in New Hampshire.
On Tuesday, Warmington met with the leaders of the Rochester Child Care Center, a private nonprofit that for 50 years has operated out of a former Catholic Church building in that city.
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“We will build our budget from the ground up and make sure it funds the priorities most important to New Hampshire working families,” Warmington told reporters after touring the center.
Warmington said she would support expanding eligibility for families that receive a state-financed, childcare scholarship.
The current income limit of the scholarship is 85% of the state median income which for a family of four is $124,595 a year.
Warmington backed a bill (SB 645) that Sen. Tara Reardon, D-Concord, had crafted to raise that limit to 95% which would max out at $139,253 for the family of four in the state.
If elected, Warmington said she would seek to expand the childcare tax credit (HB 1433) that first-term Gov. Kelly Ayotte recently signed into law.
The tax credit starting next year would equal 50% of the expenses an employer has to create up to 12 childcare slots for their employees either at an on-site center or by subsidizing an existing program.
“I think it’s still unclear whether it will do very much and that only large employers will be able to take advantage of it,” Warmington said.
“I would expand the application of it because 97% of our employers are small businesses with fewer than 20 people working there.”
Warmington also said she supports trying to find $7.5 million a year to restore workforce training grants to child care programs. The Trump administration declined New Hampshire’s request to use federal welfare grants (Transitional Assistance to Needy Families) as the funding source.
She also endorsed the concept of state support for pre-kindergarten school programs as New Hampshire is one of only six states in the nation that doesn’t have any subsidies.
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Cora Lynn-Hoppe, executive director of the Rochester center, said it’s difficult for independent businesses such as hers to remain economically viable as all their costs to operate have gone up.
The program’s full rate of tuition is $345 a week for infants, down to $280 for preschoolers.
They have 136 kids served on the site with another 155 enrolled in child care programs at public schools in the city. The business has 70 employees with teachers earning $21-to-$24 per hour depending on their education and experience, Lynn-Hoppe said.
In the past year, the program has made several financial changes to keep the doors open.
These include dropping a Head Start program there for low-income children, ending the practice of serving meals to those enrolled in the school program and a plan soon to charge a $10 weekly copay even for families that qualify for a scholarship.
They also had to cut back their hours from 6 a.m.-6 p.m. to 7 a.m-5 p.m. which is a challenge if both parents are working full- time, she continued.
“Our system is so fragile, any time we lose some kind of funding something has to go,” Lynn-Hoppe said.
They have also begun offering a weekly food pantry for families and staff members.
Rochester Mayor Chuck Grassie helped start the program with the help of former Senate Finance Committee Chairman Dick Green, R-Rochester.
“This is really a model program that helps train people across the state on how to operate home-based childcare services,” Grassie said.
His wife, former State Rep. Anne Grassie, is the family services coordinator for the program.
“Unlike public schools, we see our families twice a day while schoolteachers rarely see the parents and the buildings are rightfully very secure and inaccessible for them,” Anne Grassie added.
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