Military families continue to wrestle with the high cost of child care, though there may not be a single solution, according to Senator Tim Kaine
Monday, Sen. Kaine visited a child care facility at Naval Air Station Oceana. The center was recently expanded to handle the growing number of military families who need care. Roughly 1,400 Navy families are still on a waiting list in Hampton Roads, so building new on-base facilities won’t fix the problem, Kaine says.
“It's going to take everybody. It is going to take the public schools, private providers, YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, church based providers. It's going to take all of that to make it work,” he said.
Among the issues, the services each have different rules for how much they will pay for child care, putting families from different branches at a disadvantage in competitive markets like Hampton Roads.
“There's significant competition for childcare workers right now. And so sometimes the competition might be between service branches, but there's always competition between child development centers at Oceana and private childcare providers in the community,” Kaine said.
Finding care in the community has become increasingly expensive. Kaine introduced a bill to cap the amount a family pays for child care at seven percent of their annual income.
“Many families pay more for childcare than they do for college, for children of college age,” he said. “So I think this cap is going to be the thing that is really going to help people on the affordability issue.”
The bill being reintroduced this week would pertain to all families, not just the military. It also provides funding to increase the number of daycare workers.