Hastings County will be faced with increased child care costs at budget time in March.
Local officials, including Belleville and Quinte West, learned at a recent meeting of the Community and Human Services committee that the provincial government is throwing a heavier child care cost onto the munciipalities this year.
Locally that means a cost of $1.78 million, an extra $371,677 more than last year.
Belleville Councillor Bill Sandison pointed out that it’s disappointing” for municipalities.
“But municipalities are going to be faced with a 26% increase and that doesn’t get airtime out there and it’s really unfortunate that we’re going to have to go back to the taxpayers across our region and ask them for another $371,000.”
Quinte West Councillor Terry Cassidy criticized the move by the government saying women are very affected by the COVID-19 difficulties of not being able to get back to work and need child care.
He added, “When we look at what COVID-19 has done to people who have been laid off, people that are front line people. A lot of those people that are having hard time finding work and may still have a hard time getting back to work. Women the children. Child care isn’t just a nice thing, a luxury to have. It’s an essential for those people to be able to get back to work and if we want to provide some kind of equity and fairness in employment for women. That we don’t just simply try our best to find what’s left over but we make it known to the provincial government that not supporting child care is really not supporting women getting back to work.”
“To cut child care and to put it on the property taxpayers back to be able to make it happen when in fact you can see clearly women are not going to be able to get back to work with out adequate child care. “
Director Erin Rivers indicated that at budget time staff would be looking at some options to try to find some money to help cover the extra cost.
