Low-income parents brace for Westchester day care fee hike

When Westchester County hikes fees for subsidized day care Feb. 1, as scheduled, Kaycee Coakley and her 2-year-old daughter will feel the pinch.

Coakley said her bill at Queen's Daughters Day Care Center in Yonkers would rise to $94.50 a month, an increase of $25.50. It doesn't seem like much, but the single mom said the additional cost would strain her budget.

"Right now, I am cutting corners paying the rent, Con Ed, my phone," said Coakley, a 32-year-old property manager who lives in Yonkers. "It's going to be an extreme hardship. I don't even know if I can afford to keep her in day care."

The fees for low-income families have been at the center of a political debate in Westchester County.

Late last year, Astorino persuaded two Democrats to break with their party and join Republican lawmakers on the Board of Legislators to raise the day care fees by 7 percent as part of the county's $1.7 billion budget for 2013. That budget closed a $85 million shortfall by cutting around 70 workers, incurring millions in new debt and slashing day care subsidies and other spending.

The fees are capped at 20 percent of a family's income above the federal poverty level, with eligibility limited to families earning up to twice the level. When the new fees take effect, families who qualify will pay a maximum of 27 percent of their income above the poverty line.

Astorino initially sought to raise the fees by 15 percent -- to the maximum of 35 percent allowed under state law -- but he scaled back his proposed hike as part of his budget deal with the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers.

Democrats who control the Board of Legislators say the cuts illustrate Astorino's heartless approach to government. Families will suffer with the increased costs, said Legis. Alfreda Williams (D-Greenburgh).

"A few hundred dollars more out of their pockets represents a good percentage of their weekly take-home income, and that will cause many parents to search for less safe alternatives," Williams said.

But Astorino claimed the increased fees are the only way to ensure county day care exists in the future.

"The issue was never the county's commitment to day care but figuring out a way to keep the program solvent," he said in a statement.

A family with income around $25,400, the median for the program, would pay slightly more than an extra dollar a day after the hikes take effect. That's hardly an insurmountable burden, Astorino said in his statement.

The county executive also noted that Westchester's fees are less than those in New York City, which charges 35 percent, and Dutchess County, which charges 30 percent. Rockland County charges 20 percent, but has a 3-year waiting list to join the program. Putnam County charges 20 percent.

But Williams said even an extra dollar a day would hurt poor families.

"To trivialize or minimize the impact of these cost increases to poor working parents signals ignorance of the financial stress under which they live," she said.

In the past, Democratic legislators have sued the county to halt Astorino's proposed day care increases. But this time, it's unlikely that would happen again because legislators aren't challenging how the county budget was adopted.

The Civil Service Employees Association, the county's largest labor union, is asking a New York Supreme Court justice in White Plains to nullify the budget. That case opens Feb. 1, the same day the fees are set to increase. The court already has rejected the union's request to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the budget from taking effect.

Barbara Berrios, the executive director of Queen's Daughters Day Care Center, said many of her clients are hoping a court again will delay the fee increase. But she was pessimistic.

In a few months, Berrios said, the economic consequences of the fee hike would ripple throughout cities like Yonkers and Mount Vernon as parents struggled to balance work, tend to their children and stay afloat financially.

"I don't think they are really believing this is going to hold, but it is," she said. "As the weeks go by, and they see they are getting behind on bills, and they start getting behind on day care, then they will have to make hard choices."

Coakley likely would depend on her family if she can't afford day care for her child. "Right now my sister works nights, so she can give my daughter a couple of days," she said.