By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Collaboration

A new program in Northeast Indiana is trying to ease the burden of childcare. It’s not just an issue for Noble County’s 47,000 rural residents. As WorkingNation has previously reported, the effect from the pandemic lingers, especially for women. More than 100,000 Americans miss work because of childcare problems, and the childcare sector itself has a workforce shortage.

Noble County has just launched the Tri-Share Program. Modeled after an initiative in Michigan, it’s aimed at reducing parents’ out-of-pocket childcare costs.

“A large part of our employment base is manufacturing,” says Jenna Anderson, Thrive by 5 Early Childhood Coalition coordinator. “Our childcare costs are lower than a lot of areas across the country, but it is still a struggle for many of our residents to afford the costs.

“And those costs that parents are paying often don’t cover the true cost to the childcare for providing the care. One of the local programs was losing $13 per day per child, and another has said their costs only cover 80% of their expenses. That’s not sustainable.”

The Tri-Share Program is a quick, short-term solution to address affordability. As the name suggests, it engages three parties – the parents, their employers, and the government, in this case, Noble County. Anderson reached out to the Noble County Commissioners, who provided seed funding of $50,000. Then, she connected with other stakeholders.

Supporting Employee Childcare Needs

Nate Lowe was convinced. Just about a year into his role as the superintendent for the West Noble School Corporation, he sees how challenging it is to fill critical roles like assistants who can earn up to $16 an hour working with applied skills or functioning skills students. Openings can barely attract one or two applicants.

“What [employees] are telling me is that [the Tri-Share Program] helps them to be here,” Lowe says. “If you’re at a licensed childcare program with multiple people and one of them is sick, you can still drop your child off.

“If you just have friends or family watching your child and they’re sick, then you have to stay home. The immediate effect is our employees are here more and I think the background effect is they’re happier to be here because they know we’re helping them financially in this way. It’s a little more money in their pockets and certainly every little bit helps, and they can be on the clock on more often.”

Lowe heard about the Tri-Share Program from an instructional aide who works at one of his high schools, Alicia Squire. She experienced the very scenario Lowe described.

“My babysitter was my husband’s uncle. He decided he needed to get a regular job because the economy is bad and they weren’t making it. I called a local daycare…and started there within a couple weeks. It was really expensive. I was paying the uncle $50 a week, and daycare is $120 a week.

“I don’t make a lot of money and my husband had a big job change…and took a huge pay cut,” Squire explains. “That was pretty rough. So, $120 a week was pretty hard. It wasn’t even worth it to work at that point.”

The daycare mentioned the program to Squire – who mentioned it to Lowe. He lobbied his school board which agreed to designate $5,000 of this school year’s budget to help their employees. He says while this can help individual employees, it ultimately helps to serve the broader student population.

“This is serving our kids well,” Lowe says. “We are fully staffed, where sometimes it’s one assistant-to-three students, or one-to-two. Some students need one-on-one attention, and if that person is not at work [because of childcare issues], we’re not serving kids like we’re supposed to.”

Squire says splitting the cost of childcare with her employer and the county enables her to have enough money for her kids’ – ages four and six – swim lessons, school lunches, and cheerleading.

“It puts more food in the house, more gas in the car because the cost of gas has gone up,” she says. “Thank God for Tri-Share. I would’ve had to stay home, which is not a bad idea, but I just love what I do.”

Possible Program Expansion

“Employers are truly beginning to understand that a lack of childcare is affecting their hiring needs,” Anderson says. “I am currently working with an employer who is developing childcare within their business because they lost two employees to a lack of childcare and were unable to hire two replacements for them also due to lack of childcare. While the Tri-Share Program right now isn’t addressing the larger issue of capacity, it can help employers retain staff by contributing to their childcare costs, and perhaps recruit employees from other places that might not be offering support through the Tri-Share Program.”

There’s an income limit families must meet or fall below to qualify. So far, four families are part of the Tri-Share Program. Since county funds are used, the program is currently limited to families who live in Noble County. But because the county is relatively small and has employees who qualify based on income and live outside of Noble County, Anderson says she is working closely with the Northeast Indiana Early Childhood Coalition to expand the program to all of Northeast Indiana.

“This is a big burden for families, especially single parents who don’t have the option to not work. However, many families, in order to be stable in this economy, need to be a two-parent working household,” says Anderson.

“Still, the costs of childcare place a big burden on them, financially. The community’s wellbeing is at stake, as well. We already have employers who cannot fill open jobs, and parents who cannot get into the workforce – even though they want to – because they can’t find childcare at all, let alone quality and affordable childcare,” she says. “I think the fact that we are supporting any families is a success. It’s certainly considered a success to those families.”


Victoria Lim wrote this article for WorkingNation.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


get more stories like this via email

A new report finds Connecticut's state government can improve pay equity and representation.

The University of Connecticut School of Public Policy report examines demographic representation in proportion to statewide census data. Hispanic and Latino people have the lowest representation among new hires and long-term employees. White men and Black people are the majority of longer-term hires.

Mohamed Alkadry, professor and director of the school, said it is more than a human resources issue.

"There are also areas where the issues are stubborn like hiring female engineers is complicated by many things like the availability of female engineers in the workforce," Alkadry pointed out. "Engineering schools are still graduating not enough women by comparison to men."

Although female engineers are entering the field in record numbers, they are not remaining in the industry. Alkadry noted lawmakers can fund pathway programs for government employment, which can provide recent graduates with options to enter public service since it is harder to enter a field with little or no experience.

Despite this, Alkadry finds representation in government among all groups has improved in recent years.

While representation is fairly well-rounded, pay equity in Connecticut's government is not. The report showed pay for people of color, Hispanics and Latinos is lower than those of white workers. Alkadry emphasized pay equity plays a big role in representation, especially for minority workers.

"If half of the workforce is that, but then the pay equity data shows that these folks are only making 60% of what white men and white women are making in that same workforce, this means that the Hispanic and Black men and women are ending up in lower-echelon positions," Alkadry outlined.

One report recommendation called for the Department of Administrative Services to conduct an analysis on the diversity of statewide candidate pools. The data can uncover whether diverse candidates are entering the application process or if other barriers slow their progress.

More than a year after City of Richmond workers filed to vote on a union contract, they are celebrating its implementation.

The contract provides workers with an established grievance process, updated health and safety guidelines, and labor management committees to help improve different departments. Workers described the moment as everything they have waited for.

Felicia Boney, management analyst associate in the Department of Social Services for the City of Richmond, said it sends a message to other cities about the efficacy of treating workers fairly.

"The economy has changed," Boney pointed out. "People are looking for better employment, better benefits. It will improve retention of the employees and if employers are treating their employees like they should, it would benefit them."

Cities like Alexandria, Portsmouth, and Newport News are all in different stages of the unionization process. A 2021 poll showed 68% of Virginians favored letting public employees unionize.

Boney noted there was plenty of give and take from the city and workers, making it quite a process to reach this point but with things in place, she emphasized the city is eager to start working with the Joint Labor Management Committee.

Another reason for the contract's implementation is making the city more competitive in hiring. The hope is to attract people to jobs in understaffed departments. She stressed workers are eager to see what lies ahead in a new chapter of Richmond's history.

"We love our jobs, we really do," Boney added. "We just want to be able to be better at doing what we're doing, and I think this gives us an opportunity to do just that. We want to make Richmond great again and I think this is one of the tracks we can take to do that."

Before the contract and unionization, one in 12 of the city's full-time employees could not support themselves on their salary. The city also saw high turnover rates across agencies. In all, it cost the city more than $6.5 million per year.


get more stories like this via email

Supporters of a new state-sponsored retirement savings program in Maine are celebrating a significant milestone.

More than six months after the launch of the Maine Retirement Investment Trust, or MERIT, enrolled employees have saved more than $1 million.

Alf Anderson, associate director for advocacy and outreach at AARP Maine, said the program was created to help the roughly 200,000 private sector workers without access to a retirement plan at their job.

"You know, one of the most important things for people as they plan for retirement," said Anderson, "is having that financial security to be able to do the things they want to do when they do get to that point in their lives. And so, that milestone was really exciting for us to see."

Anderson said businesses with at least five employees can register with MERIT to help set up savings for workers, who would otherwise seek out an independent financial planner.

More than 1,500 employers have already signed on.

Surveys show more than half of Americans are concerned they won't be able to achieve financial security in retirement.

At least 25 states introduced legislation last year to establish new, state-backed retirement plans.

Anderson said the successful rollout in Maine reveals the urgency people feel about planning for the future due to the high costs of food and housing.

"Do I cut back on my medications?" said Anderson. "Do I not eat a certain number of meals today? Like, it's really frightening to see some of the decisions people have to make."

Anderson said the pandemic didn't help - with even more Mainers facing depleted savings accounts and having only Social Security to fall back on when they reach retirement age.

State officials say MERIT could help Mainers for generations to come, and help reduce reliance on public assistance programs.