State officials have decided to stop subsidizing a day care center located near the state Capitol. The decision means Capitol Child Care, which has been a model for other centers, will likely be run by a new provider. State employees whose children are enrolled in Capitol Child Care are outraged. Some say they may take a leave of absence from the state to stay home with their children if the center changes hands. Child care experts say the situation points out the problem many working parents face in trying to find good child care.

	About 100 children attend Capitol Child Care each day. The center is housed in a small brick building about a block from the state Capitol. On a typical day, toddlers play with hula hoops and scoot around on plastic cars in the "muscle room," a space for them to burn off all that energy. (MPR Photo/Laura McCallum)

About 100 children attend Capitol Child Care each day. The center is housed in a small brick building about a block from the state Capitol. On a typical day, toddlers play with hula hoops and scoot around on plastic cars in the "muscle room," a space for them to burn off all that energy.

Claudia Doran has run this center since it first opened 12 years ago. She says the goal was to create a quality program that would be a model for other centers. She says she still gets requests from people to tour the building and learn about the program.

"We've been a little mystified as far as how we've been able to create a program that's been such a model. And part of it is because of that subsidy of not having to pay rent, which is not as unique as some people may think; there are a lot of programs that operate without paying rent," Doran says.

Doran says the state subsidy enables her to offer employees competitive salaries and benefits, which usually means lower turnover. The state has subsidized the center to the tune of slightly more than $2 million dollars since it opened -- $150,000 a year. The 14 state agencies located in the Capitol complex pay higher rents to subsidize the center.

Administration Commissioner David Fisher says he and other officials in the Ventura administration decided to eliminate the subsidy to try to lower rents for state agencies. Fisher says the child care center should be able to pay for itself.

"Number one, we felt that we want to treat this operation the same as other operations in state government. Number two, there are quite a few agencies that are contributing to this subsidy who don't have very many people in the program," according to Fisher.

Fisher's office put out a request for bids to run the center, which are due later this month. Doran is eligible to bid, but says she probably couldn't afford to pay $16,000 a month in rent without pricing parents out of the center.

"We can't ignore it; we have the highest percentage of mothers with young kids in the workforce in the country here, and so as much as we want to say, maybe mothers should be staying home, the reality is, we know that mothers are in the workforce, and likely they're in the workforce to stay." - Ann Kaner-Roth, Child Care WORKS

Last week, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees sued Fisher's department, accusing the administration of improperly using a "fast-track" bidding process. The union says the process will favor the provider who pays the most money, not the one with the best program.

Fisher says the bid includes quality criteria such as licensing, low teacher-child ratios, and use of a muscle room.

Parents aren't convinced that the quality will stay the same. Solveig Berg says Capitol Child Care's reputation was one of the reasons she took a job with the Met Council three years ago.

"I have a daughter who's 4. She had been in four different daycares. And my decision for making the job switch was partly so I could get into Capitol Child Care, to go from the private sector into public sector," she says.

Berg says given the uncertainty over the center's future, she's looked at other day cares in the area.

"My top two that I would like to go to? One has an 18-month wait for toddler, two-year for preschool; the other one, it would be maybe some openings in the spring, but they're not quite sure. If I'm not happy with the new - whatever develops, which we won't know until September - I probably would approach my employer for a leave of absence," Berg says.

Child care experts say Berg's dilemma is common. Ann Kaner-Roth, executive director of the advocacy group Child Care WORKS, says Minnesota has one day-care slot for every two children who need child care. She says parents who are happy with their child care are more productive employees, so the scarcity of child care affects employers.

"We can't ignore it; we have the highest percentage of mothers with young kids in the workforce in the country here, and so as much as we want to say, maybe mothers should be staying home, the reality is, we know that mothers are in the workforce, and likely they're in the workforce to stay," says Kaner-Roth.

More than 5,000 Minnesota families are on the waiting list for the state's subsidized child care program, the highest since 1999. Many legislators say they're concerned about the issue of child care. But they say it's likely to get short shrift next session as lawmakers grapple with a projected $1.6 billion budget deficit.

Childrens Defense Fund