Home-based providers and payment delays
For providers running programs out of their homes, a delay can quickly become a question of whether they can pay staff, buy food or keep the doors open.
Richard Buery has warned that 2-K’s heavy reliance on home-based providers makes payment delays particularly risky. Providers described dipping into savings, taking out loans and struggling to cover payroll while city contracts were still being processed. In the worst case, programs delayed opening, leaving families scrambling for last-minute care. A larger organization may have reserves while a contract clears; many home-based providers do not.
Andrea Pena, who has cared for children in the Bronx for nearly three decades, runs a home-based program licensed for 14 children that is usually full. After paying employees and expenses, she estimates that she earns about $9.50 an hour, and the column reports a median wage of $6 an hour for New York’s home-based childcare providers. New York is trying to put public money behind childcare so families do not have to carry the cost alone. The next question is how to build that public financing in a way that works for the small providers the system depends on.
Evidence
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- Home-based providers and payment delays
- For providers running programs out of their homes, a delay can quickly become a question of whether they can pay staff, buy food or keep the doors open.
- Richard Buery has warned that 2-K’s heavy reliance on home-based providers makes payment delays particularly risky.
- Providers described dipping into savings, taking out loans and struggling to cover payroll while city contracts were still being processed. In the worst case, programs delayed opening, leaving families scrambling for last-minute care.
- A larger organization may have reserves while a contract clears; many home-based providers do not.
- Andrea Pena, who has cared for children in the Bronx for nearly three decades, runs a home-based program licensed for 14 children that is usually full.
- After paying employees and expenses, she estimates that she earns about $9.50 an hour, and the column reports a median wage of $6 an hour for New York’s home-based childcare providers.
- New York is trying to put public money behind childcare so families do not have to carry the cost alone. The next question is how to build that public financing in a way that works for the small providers the system depends on.
- A larger organization may have reserves while a contract clears; many home-based providers do not.
- Andrea Pena, who has cared for children in the Bronx for nearly three decades, runs a home-based program licensed for 14 children that is usually full.
- After paying employees and expenses, she estimates that she earns about $9.50 an hour, and the column reports a median wage of $6 an hour for New York’s home-based childcare providers.