Letter: Truro town meeting article takes aim at child care crisis – Cape Cod Times
By Sandra Faiman-Silva
Truro town meeting will debate an important initiative to benefit local workforce families: Article 7A, which appropriates $212,500 for a one-year child care voucher fund. The Massachusetts child care system is in crisis, with families paying unsustainable rates, child care workers earning poverty wages and facilities unable to sustain their bottom line. Child care can cost families as much as $20,000 a year for infants and $16,500 for toddlers, more than a year of public college, home mortgage or rent. Similar programs have been passed in several Cape Cod towns, including Chatham and Eastham…
Taxpayers can also do much more, and the Common Start Bill (H.605/S.362) now before the state Legislature aims to do just that. The bill proposes 'bedrock funding' for facilities, drastically increasing family subsidies, and increasing child care worker wages to parity with K-12 teachers.