Governor Bill Lee announced Wednesday that the state will invest an additional estimated $7.2 million in the state’s WAGE$ Program, which could be beneficial to child care facilities in the region.
The WAGE$ program was designed to help pay salaries for educators and early child care facilities across the state. The Governor’s recent investment will expand the program and increase salary caps from $20 an hour to $30 an hour. UCDD Economic Development Assistant Director Rosa Smith said the wages will attract more educators to the early childcare facilities.
“So, what we are hoping for is that the money that is put into this will help the providers to stabilize their workforce, reduce turnover, and improve the quality of care while easing the financial strain on centers that cannot afford to raise wages on their own,” Smith said.
Smith said childcare facilities in the Upper Cumberland and across the state face the constant challenge of high turnover rates. Smith said low wages are one of the major reasons for the high turnover rates.
“Our providers of our child care centers cannot financially provide the wages to their staff that some of our school systems can,” Smith said. “So some of our staffing will get their early education degrees, and then they will stop the daycare, and then go into our school systems to get higher-paying jobs.”
Smith said some childcare facilities in the Upper Cumberland can only afford to pay $8-$10 an hour for educators. Smith said those wages are not enough for people to support their families
Smith said the investment will also help stabilize early childcare facilities. Smith said stabilization will also lead to improving the quality of child care for our region.
“It’s definitely going to help our workforce, you know, even in the school system you know, you got 7:45am-2:30pm, 2:45pm, but for working families, they need those hours for the workforce 6am-6pm,” Smith said. “So, to provide that early childhood education, it’s not only gonna help our children, but also our working families to be able to give them a quality of life.”
Over $24 million has been distributed to over 4,000 educators across the state since it was started five years ago.
