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Last year, New Orleans added more than 1,000 child care seats for low-income families after voters approved a historic property tax increasein 2022. The referendum raised the budget of the program seven-fold — from $3 million to $21 million a year for 20 years. Because Louisiana’s early childhood fund matches money raised locally for child care, the city gets an additional $21 million to help families find care.
New Orleans is part of a growing trend of communities passing ballot measures to expand access to child care. In Whatcom County, Washington, a property tax increase added $10 million for child care and children’s mental health to the county’s annual budget. A marijuana sales tax approved last year by voters in Anchorage, Alaska, will generate more than $5 million for early childhood programs.
The state of Texas has taken a somewhat different tack. In November, voters approved a state constitutional amendment that allows tax relief for qualifying child care providers. Under this provision, cities and counties can choose to exempt a child care center from paying all or some of its property taxes. Dallas was among the first city-and-county combo in Texas to provide the tax break.
Insurance, licensing, physical building and maintenance, FICA, health insurance, PTO, additional coverage for workers who are constantly sick from kids being sick, administrative assistant, building security, accounting, attorneys, and so on.
I understand that labor costs are not the only costs. But over $10k per teacher is the low end and also numbers from three years ago. When we left a year ago, his tuition was $2300 after a 10% discount from my work. That was a classroom with 6 kids per teacher so likely over $14k revenue per teacher per month who still averages $3600/month. They did not do a great job with extra teachers since I recall him having to stay home a dozen times because of a lack of teachers. They were not even close to the most expensive. Bright Horizons charged about $3200 per infant three years ago. They definitely make healthy profit while paying their teachers very little in a high cost of living city.