Family Day Care

Here's an excellent article on the woes of family day care. Not quite sure why she would only make $8500 a year, but perhaps her people were part time. Family day care is the backbone of the industry, and without good family care, centers get all the kids, and that's not right for a lot of children. As an advocate of family child care, I hate to see this kind of thing happening.
Judy


Finding child care a headache? A look at the other side
H.J. Cummins, Star Tribune

The next time any working parent gets frustrated trying to find child care, they should think of Kim Jagaraj.

Jagaraj was a licensed child-care provider in her Sartell home in Stearns County for 10 years. Usually tending to around 10 children, by 2000 she was clearing about $8,500 a year.

Then an auditor at the Minnesota Department of Revenue said she owed the state $2,541.71 because many of her deductions had been disallowed on three years of tax returns.

"I was completely intimidated, and I had no idea what they were talking about," Jagaraj said.
She planned just to write a check, she said, "because I figured if I had to pay an attorney the money would be a wash, even if I won."

But she got lucky. She found Tom Copeland, attorney and director of the Redleaf National Institute in St. Paul, which exists to help small, independent child-care providers make it as a business. Most of the institute's work is training -- lessons on issues such as tax deductions, licensing disputes and handling government care subsidies. But Copeland also represents individual providers across the country on cases such as Jagaraj's. Membership in the institute, a part of the broader Resources for Child Caring, costs $35 a year.

Copeland stuck with Jagaraj through what turned into a nearly four-year-long appeals process. They filed their appeal Jan. 7, 2002, and they just wrapped up the paperwork last month. Jagaraj got back every deduction -- car mileage, food expenses, home depreciation and more -- except $71.83 for sod.

"We still should have won on the sod, but at that point we just said, 'Let's pay the 70 bucks and go home,' " Copeland said
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But Jagaraj doesn't do child care anymore.

"There were several factors," she said, "but the tax thing made me really want to get out."
Minnesota tax officials said such long waits are not common.

Three-fourths of its appeals are resolved within a year, said Terese Mitchell, director of the appeals and legal services division.

But Copeland said he sees problems like Jagaraj's across the country for family child-care providers.

They face the same lack of resources as many small businesses to fight city hall, he said.
"But it's also a case of auditors not understanding family child care, in my opinion," he added. "They don't see it as a business."

In one case -- not in Minnesota -- one auditor had told Copeland's client, "You can't deduct the cost of diapers, baby wipes and gifts to children, because you bought those things out of the kindness of your heart."

"That's plain disrespect," Copeland said.

Licensed family child care is more of a business now than it has ever been, Copeland said.
Twenty years ago, most people went into child care because they loved children, and left child care because they were moving or moving on, Copeland said.

Now the reason they give for starting is, "I love children and I have to make a living," he said, and the reason they give for stopping is, "I love children but I can't make enough money."

And collectively it's big business. Minnesota's 12,775 licensed family child-care providers are set up to care for almost 150,000 children, much more than the 90,000 in the state's 1,500 child-care centers, according to the state Department of Human Services.

Copeland hopes to lift family child care to the status of a business -- a profession -- both in the eyes of the provider and the parents who pay for the care.

Then maybe providers such as Jagaraj, who now is a social worker who works with girls whose mothers are in prison, might make it their careers.

What are your workplace issues? You can reach H.J. Cummins at workandlife@ startribune.com. Please sign e-mails; no names will appear in print without prior approval.