SANBORN N.Y. (WKBW) — The price of childcare has gone up and parents are feel the heat.
Shannon Stott organized the Niagara County Community College Childcare Career Fair. She said the prices of childcare has gone up and it is unbelievable.
"It's a struggle for working families," Stott said.
She said providing childcare for her two kids has been very expensive over the past year.
"You know the cost of daycare for two children can be upwards of 16 thousand dollars a year when you are factoring in summer camps, before school care after school care," She said.
Director of the LaSalle Early Childhood Center Marybeth Simoneit said there are missing pieces to this puzzle. She said there should be a balance between the cost of having a family and paying for childcare.
"The cost of care does not match up with what the parents are able to pay and there needs to be support somewhere," Simoneit said.
Going hand-and-and with the struggle parents are facing paying for childcare, the other side to this story is the lack of staff childcare facilities have.
"The daycare environments are struggling significantly. They are understaffed," Stott said.
Niagara County Community College Childcare Career Fair set up shop for the community in hopes to help local childcare facilities. But why are the facilities struggling with staffing?
Simoneit said money is the driving force.
"There is more money available to us through some state grants," Simoneit said. "But its certainly not bringing us to the level that necessary to compete with other jobs. Even minimum wage fast food jobs are able to pay sometimes better than we are."
Simoneit said employees at LeSalle will likely make less than $26 thousand per year. Yet the childcare industry is offering incentives like scholarship funding, classroom updates, and transportation to employees.
