Posted: Tuesday, May 6, 2008 12:00 am
CHEYENNE (AP) - Southeast Wyoming faces a shortage of child care that some say is hurting the area's ability to attract workers.
Day care providers in Laramie County say they receive calls every day from parents seeking vacancies for their children.
Many of the calls come from parents of newborns. Others come from those not due to give birth for several months. If the parents hear the day care businesses have no openings, they often are referred somewhere else.
"But everybody we refer them to, they're booked as well," said Lisa Cisco, director of one of three facilities at Colleen's Kiddy Care Inc. on East 17th Street.
Colleen Bixby, the owner of the business, decided about two years ago that she wanted to reduce the size of the operation and closed one of her facilities. But aware of the high demand for child care, she reopened it earlier this year.
"It filled up in a week," Bixby said, referring to the 20 available spots that included 12 infants under age 2 and eight 3-year-olds.
People in the child care business say the demand in southeast Wyoming, particularly for care for infants and school-age children, is not unique to the state. They say it's a problem across the United States.
Wyoming already struggles with a shortage of workers in some industries and has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. The lack of child care in the state could create another obstacle in attracting and maintaining workers.
The Early Education Partnership is working to raise money to build a child-care facility in the Cheyenne Business Parkway on land donated to the partnership by Cheyenne LEADS. No construction date has been set.
The planned facility would accommodate about 180 children and would cater to children of all ages, said Rod Hottle, a board member for the partnership. The partnership is made up of public agencies and private businesses concerned about the early child-care needs in Laramie County.
"The board is committed to making this happen," Hottle said. He said some people have moved out of the area because they could not find suitable child care.
The availability of child care is a work force issue that enables parents to feel comfortable going to work and earning a living, said Randy Bruns, chief executive officer of Cheyenne LEADS, the economic development corporation for Cheyenne and Laramie County.
"It's critical for us to keep young families here," Bruns said.
A state study completed in 2006 found that if existing day care centers don't expand and no new centers are built, 2,754 children in Wyoming will have unmet child-care needs by 2016.
Kim Lamb, regional manager of Child Care Finder of southeast Wyoming, said the highest demand for care is for infants and school-aged children as well as for care after 6 p.m. and on weekends.
"A lot of people who do work the nontraditional hours are fortunate to have family, but those who are new to the community and haven't met friends or neighbors yet, those are the ones that are kind of facing a challenge," Lamb said.
"On a daily basis, I receive calls from parents looking for infant (care), sometimes from parents who are not due for several months," Lamb said. She said it's usually easiest to find care for children between the ages of 2 and 5.
A study released in March by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies states the average annual income for a full-time employee at a child-care center in Wyoming is $17,210. The study also says that parents pay an average of $7,160 annually for the full-time care of an infant.
Meanwhile, some estimates state that median annual income of a single mother in Wyoming is just over $19,501. At that level, a single mother would spend 37 percent of her income paying for child care.