Childcare voucher program underfunded

According to the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS), during the 2006-07 school year, the UW experienced the longest waiting list in the history of its childcare voucher program.

The UW's 2007 subliminal budget request to the Washington Legislature includes $250,000 for student/faculty childcare vouchers and $1 million for another childcare facility on campus.

Of the 360 student-parents who applied for childcare vouchers, only 173 received a voucher, leaving 135 children who financially qualified for the program waitlisted due to limited funding.

In 1983, the UW Childcare Assistance Program began providing childcare service subsidies to student-parents who qualified financially. This program provides childcare vouchers to low-income students who choose from a DSHS-licensed childcare facility in the Puget Sound, including the University of Washington's four childcare centers.

"In my law school small section group, I was one of the very few non-parents," said Dave Brown, president of GPSS.

For the past two years, Brown, along with a team of other GPSS officers, has been trying to inform students about the issue and lobby to the UW's administration and the Washington Legislature in Olympia for more childcare funds.

"Childcare is not separate from all of the other important issues on campus," Brown said. "It's one of the tools that ensures a quality of life, like mental health and health insurance, by providing support to all types of students."

The budget for UW's Childcare Assistance Program comes from the Services and Activities Fee (SAF). Last year, the SAF had a budget of $12 million and allocated $757,055 directly for childcare subsidies, but that was not enough funding to provide vouchers to 38 percent of the total applicants who qualified.

"If we are trying to recruit quality staff to the University of Washington, we need to do all that we can to insure that they can live here by providing programs like childcare, because the cost of living in Seattle is much higher then at other colleges," Brown said.

The four childcare centers on campus, Children's Center on west campus and the Children's Centers at Radford Court, Laurel Village and The Cottage School at Harborview, served 255 infants, toddlers and preschoolers during 2006-07 school year.

The waitlist for access to these centers during the 2006-07 year was 568 children [HTML_REMOVED] about two years [HTML_REMOVED] comprising of 331 infants, 110 toddlers and 127 preschoolers.

The ASUW is in alliance with other Washington public university students lobbying for more childcare subsidies funds from the state Legislature.

"This personally affects me because my mother raised my brother, who has special needs, and me as a single parent while in college," ASUW President Tyler Dockins said. "[ASUW] will make it our priority to advocate for more childcare at every public university across Washington."

The subliminal budget request will be voted on during this December's legislative session. Students who would like more information or to get involved in the lobbying process can contact the GPSS at www.gpss.washington.edu.

[Reach reporter Shanelle Smith at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]