Home-based day care providers have approved a contract negotiated between their union and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration that will land them a raise between 3 and 8.25 percent beginning in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
A spokesman for CSEA-SEUI Local 2001, the union that represents the providers that on any given day care for 4,000 children from low-income families receiving Care4Kids subsidies, said the vote was “nearly unanimous.”
With this approval, the four-year contract now heads to the General Assembly for final passage. The legislature’s non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis estimates that in the upcoming year the 8.25 percent rate increase for those caring for children under age three and 3 percent for those over age 3 will cost the state $11.3 million.
This is the first time in more than a decade the state has increased these providers rates, and the increase aims to achieve parity between center-based providers and home day cares.
Over the next three years, the contract will boost the rates for infants and toddlers by at least 26.5 percent and those over age three by 12 percent over four years. It’s unclear what that total price tag will be.
“By increasing wages and providing professional development opportunities for Care 4 Kids home-based family child care providers, we are investing in our children and those who care for them,” Malloy said in a statement last month when announcing his administration had reached an agreement with the union.
Patrice Peterson , CSEA President stated, “We know the critical age of child development is birth to three, it is our goal with this contract to provide quality care and education to our low income children with an outcome of closing our greatest-in-the-nation achievement gap.”
The adopted contract will not be available for a few weeks, the union’s spokesman said.
Read the letter sent to providers by the union outlining the highlights of the deal here.