OPINION: Help us improve Anchorage’s child care situation

If you have a child who is under 5 or if you need summer and before/after school care for a school-aged child, you know how difficult the child care situation in Anchorage has become. At this point, just finding child care is an accomplishment. Businesses are also feeling crunched as they are unable to fill many positions. Fifty-one percent of Alaska families cannot fully participate in the labor market because of issues with child care.

We are parent members of the Municipality of Anchorage’s Child Care and Early Education (ACCEE) Fund Implementation Team. We are both lucky enough to have found quality child care. For one of us, the search for quality child care involved trying several providers, many extra hours spent calling and touring, extra money out of pocket to secure spots and choosing to drive across town in the end. When looking for spaces for multiple children and foster children, it can feel like playing the lottery with how difficult it is to win. Even today, like most parents, we are stressed and worried about what tomorrow will bring.

An October 2023 McKinley Group report showed that the average cost of full-time child care in Alaska is over $13,000 a year per child. For one child, that works out to 15% of average household income, and a higher percentage for single parents. One of us pays 50% of our income to pay for child care for our two kids, and knows this is only possible because we have few other bills. Now that federal COVID-era funding has run out, many child care centers in Anchorage are in the process of raising their rates by 20-25%.

At the same time rates are going up, centers are having to close, leaving parents — and employers, who depend on parents showing up to work — in the lurch. While tuition is high for families, lack of government investment in care and education for children 0-5 and in before or after school programs means that wages for most child care providers are too low to live on. In many cases, child care workers are paid less than the retail sector. No one goes into education for the money, but one of us is a K-12 teacher and earns a reasonable salary. We hate the idea that this is not true for our kids’ loving caregivers. But there are no hidden profits in child care. The same tuition that is too high for families is not enough to pay workers more. With low wages and few benefit packages, centers are struggling to hire enough workers to stay fully staffed.

The good news is that Anchorage wants to change this unsustainable dynamic. Last year voters decided to dedicate regular funding to child care and early education in Anchorage by passing Proposition 14. And now as the Implementation Team we are exploring how best to spend those funds. And we are looking for your input!

Parents, providers, caregivers, employers, and community members – we want to hear from you about the child care situation in Anchorage, and how you think the ACCEE Fund dollars should be spent. Please take our survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ACCEE1 (and enter to win one of four gift cards!), join us at one of our remaining community conversations during the last week of February, or visit our website to learn more: https://www.careforkidsanchorage.com/. Please pass on this information to friends, coworkers, and family members — together, we can improve the child care situation and benefit parents, kids, and the economy in the process.

Nora Mattell and Jessica Simonsen are parent members of the Municipality of Anchorage’s Child Care and Early Education (ACCEE) Fund Implementation Team.

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