A recent report from the state Department of Social Services affirms what many child care providers have claimed: expenses are outpacing revenue, and salaries are not competitive. The cost of care analysis offers additional information for policy makers struggling to find solutions to South Dakota’s child care shortage.
The study breaks down annual costs and revenue for average-sized child care programs depending on the type of program, the age groups served, geographic location and other factors. In most cases, the annual expenses outpaced annual revenue.
Republican state senator Tim Reed of Brookings is among policy makers who are examining child care as a workforce issue. He highlights the low wages for child care workers demonstrated in the DSS report.
"A child care professional on average in the state, the mean pay is $12.67 per hour. A child care administrator is making $28 an hour," Reed explained. "As you can see, we need to get that child care professional rate up because they are going to move to be a preschool teacher or even the kindergarten teacher that makes $23.94 on average. And so, it really points out the pay issues, and then you’re going to have a lot of attrition.”
Reed also heads an ad hoc task force that’s been studying child care since the last legislative session.
“We still probably need to go back in and take a look at it and show, hey, here’s the wages that we need to be paying so we have those professionals, so we have the capacity we need in this state," he said.
The updated information from DSS will inform an in-depth report from the child care task force. That’s expected by the time the 2025 legislative session is underway in January.
