Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 5, 1994 TAG: 9402050086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A program called Fee System Child Day Care Services provides working low-income families with financial assistance for child care. Many had been on welfare, worked their way off and now earn too much to qualify for welfare but too little to fully afford day care on their salaries alone.
The program is funded with federal block grant money and federal money for people at risk of going on welfare. That money is funneled to localities through the state Department of Social Services and the state Council on Child Day Care and Early Childhood Programs.
Monday, Roanoke's fee system funds - money that should have carried the program through May - ran out.
"We got extra money for the last fiscal year, and we added some more people," said Ruth Clark, a social work supervisor for the Roanoke Department of Social Services. "This [fiscal] year we didn't get any extra money, so we're about three months short. I'm not real sure why.
"But this is going to be a real hardship on these people. We've had some people tell us they may have to quit work."
Funding is not expected to resume until May, Clark said.
Eligible families are those who work or who are enrolled in education or training programs and earn no more than 50 percent of the state median income. The state median income is $15,120 for a family of two and $44,488 for a family of four.
In Roanoke, the majority of the 83 families who receive fee system assistance are well under the 50 percent mark, Clark said.
Under the fee system program, families do pay a portion of child care fees, based on the income level. In some cases, it is as little as $1 a month.
Clark said she is exploring stopgap measures for the families. She has looked at an educational and training program for food stamp recipients. She has identified mental health programs that provide money for special needs children in day care.
But few of the families qualify, Clark said.
"We're taking this case by case, hoping we can help people work things out," she said. "We're hoping nobody's going to have to do anything drastic."
One Roanoke woman said she plans to borrow money from her father - who gets $600 a month in Social Security - to keep her two grandchildren in day care. The fee system program provided the woman, who asked that her name not be used, with $417 in monthly day care expenses.
"I'll just have to keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing," said the woman, who works two jobs. "If I had to scrub floors at night, I would keep these kids in day care. I'm not going to quit my job.
Sandra Carroll, executive director of the Greenvale Nursery School in Roanoke, said the absence of fee system funds has been stressful for the 13 families there who receive fee system assistance. Greenvale has temporarily placed the families on a sliding fee scale.
The families, who must now dip into their already limited budgets to meet payments, face a hardship, Carroll said.
One mother already has taken her child out of Greenvale. Some are cutting back on care, opting for services only in the afternoons and turning to neighbors to care for their children in the mornings, Carroll said.
"It's sad for families who are really making an effort to become self-sufficient," she said.
Fee system funds have run out before, as recently as three years ago, Carroll said. She remembers many people having to drop out of educational programs. One family with four children went back on welfare.
"It was just devastating," she said. "When people are beginning their journey to employment, this is a traumatic experience."
Clark said she will not know the full impact of the latest fee system cutoff until the program resumes in May. The families' cases will be kept open until then, she said.
Clark's fear is that some "may call and say `Forget it. I just quit my job,' " she said.
The Roanoke Department of Social Services is not facing the fund cutoff alone. A number of agencies in the Piedmont region of the Virginia Department of Social Services have exhausted their fee system funding, said Harry Gray, human service coordinator for the Piedmont Regional Office. The office serves agencies in 29 counties and cities in Southwest Virginia.
Some agencies, however, have been able to sustain the program.
Doris Hamilton, day care coordinator for the Roanoke County Department of Social Services, said the department has not had to terminate any fee system services, although it has in previous years.
The department - which serves the county, Salem and Vinton - has 31 families receiving fee system assistance. Eighty families are on a waiting list.
By comparison, Roanoke has 83 fee system families and 300 on a waiting list.
"This category of child care assistance is really a fine program," Gray said. "Its sister program - the jobs program - is the centerpiece of welfare reform."
President Clinton has urged reform of the nation's welfare system. And at the state level, legislators have proposed a reform package that would completely overhaul welfare in Virginia.
"It's what everybody wants," Clark said. "They want people off welfare. But if you're not making enough, you can only stretch your budget so far. People tell me their income, and I know there's no way they can make it. It comes down to paying rent, paying for food or paying for day care. It's not like they have any other choices.
"Of all the people I want to help, this is the group."
by CNB