October 19, 1999

To: Community Services Committee

From: Commissioner of Community and Neighbourhood Services

Subject: A Comprehensive Summary of Child Care Issues, and a Proposed Plan

and Timetable for Action

Purpose:

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the financial and service pressures facing the child care system in Toronto as well as a synopsis of a proposed plan and timetable for addressing the related objectives outlined in Toronto's Children's Charter, the benchmarks proposed in the Annual Report of the Children and Youth Advocate, and the improvement objectives contained in Toronto's Report Card for Children, 1999. A more detailed discussion of the pressures and plans is appended for reference as a background document.

Funding Sources, Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

The costs associated with year 2000 of the multi-year plan and timetable proposed in this report will be considered as part of the upcoming budget review process.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that:

(1) the 2000 budget request from the Children's Services Division include a discussion and explanation of the financial pressures faced by the child care system, as well as potential sources of funding relief and that the division's five year business plan reflect the proposed timetable for addressing the pressures outlined in this report;

(2) approval be given for the Children's Services Division to initiate a neighbourhood based service planning process, consistent with the principles and objectives outlined in the background paper entitled "Pressures and Plans in Child Care" and attached to this report and that this service planning process conform to the new provincial standards and guidelines governing child care service planning;

(3) as a preliminary step towards the creation of a truly integrated system of early childhood education and development within the City, the child care service planning process take into account the current and planned service assets for children provided by other City Departments and program areas, the Boards of Education and other community service providers when negotiating with neighbourhoods how best to meet local childcare needs and address local gaps and overlaps in service; and

(4) the appropriate city Officials take the necessary action to give effect thereto.

Council Reference/Background/History:

Over the last six months Council has requested a wide variety of reports on a number of the key pressures facing child care in particular and the rest of the early childhood education and development system in general. A number of these reports have already been individually provided. To fully and fairly consider all the service and financial pressures confronting child care and to appreciate their interactive impact a more comprehensive discussion of the issues is required. Such a discussion is included as a background document to this report and will provide the context in which strategic decisions affecting the future of child care can be made. The October 7, 1999 request by the Community Services Committee for a comprehensive report covering the full range of child care pressures is therefore both timely and welcome.

With the synopsis of service and financial pressures as the backdrop, a proposed plan and timetable for implementing related parts of the City's Children's Charter, for responding to the preliminary benchmarks identified in the Children and Youth Advocate's Annual Report, and for reacting to "Toronto's Report Card on Children, 1999" can be presented. Therefore this report also responds to a number of outstanding requests from Council for action plans in these important areas.

Service and Financial Pressure Facing Child Care:

The service and financial pressures currently facing child care arise from the following main sources:

- failure to pay operators their actual costs of providing subsidized child care;

- insufficient child care fee subsidies to meet the service need or demand;

- impact of school closures on child care located in school facilities;

- playground retrofit and replacement required by licensing;

- health and safety expenditures required by licensing;

- barrier-free child care access;

- loss of user revenue resulting from provincial policy changes;

- funding pressures associated with downloaded programs (wage subsidy, family resource centres, special needs resourcing)

- pay equity.

The background paper entitled "Pressures and Plans in Child Care" and attached to this report discusses each of these sources of service and financial pressure in more detail.

A Plan for the Year 2000:

There have been numerous requests to the department to develop plans and timetables to achieve many of Council's declared goals on behalf of children. The attached background paper responds to many of these requests and discusses a multi-year plan and timetable for child care and early childhood education and development.

The main objectives addressed in the multi-year plan are to:

- preserve and protect the current stock of licensed service for continued use by families in need;

- expand the number of fee subsidies available to all families in need;

- increase the range and flexibility of the care options available to all families without sacrificing basic quality or accountability.

These objectives will be addressed in the year 2000 through the following proposed strategies:

- installment 2 in a 5 year plan to pay actual costs;

- installment 1 in a 7 year prioritized playground retrofit and replacement program;

- use of unspent year-end fee subsidy to meet health and safety licensing concerns;

- replacement of 6 centres from closing schools;

- expansion of fee subsidies by 2000 spaces as step 1 in a 3 year expansion plan;

- maximizing Support To Employment Program, STEP funding for child care;

- budget top-up for child care portion of Learning, Earning and Parenting, LEAP.

Two additional strategies (a 5 year strategy to make centres barrier free and 5 year strategy to renovate and relicense centres to serve more infants) are also discussed in the background paper but have not been included in the 2000 budget request of the Children's Services Division.

Table 1 shows a summary of the costs of all of the potential year 2000 proposals itemized above.

Table 1

Summary of Costs of Year 2000 Proposals

Child Care Service Planning Process:

The background paper attached describes in detail a proposed approach for developing the Child Care Service Plan required of the City as part of the new Provincial Service Planning Guidelines for Child Care. This report recommends adoption of the planning process described in the background paper for implementation in 2000.

Conclusions:

This report provides an overview of the main service and financial pressures facing child care in the City and summarizes the year 2000 strategies and costs associated with a plan to address them. A fuller discussion of these pressures and plans is provided in the attached background document entitled "Pressures and Plans in Child Care". This report also recommends approval of a Child Care Service Planning process to meet the requirements of new Provincial Guidelines for the Management of Child Care. A detailed description of the proposed service planning process is also included in the background paper attached to this report.

Contact Name:

Marna Ramsden (phone 392-8182, fax 392-4576)

General Manger Children's Services Division

Commissioner Community and Neighbourhood Services