OPINION: What really matters in Boise? Not Idaho children

If it’s a choice between bucks and babies, you can guess where the Idaho Legislature will wind up.

It won’t be the babies.

Case in point: the everyday challenge Idaho parents face in securing child care.

It’s expensive. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Idaho parents can pay more for child care than they spend on housing — or can expect to pay for college tuition. On average, it costs $9,630 a year to care for an infant. Throw in the cost of child care for a 4-year-old at $8,117.

If the definition of affordable child care is 7% of a family’s income, then only 26.9% of Idaho’s families can afford child care.

And that’s if you can find it. During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 200 Idaho child care centers closed their doors, expanding a child care desert that affected half of Idaho families before the pandemic began. Even as the economy recovered, child care operators faced a bind. They found it difficult competing for labor in a tight market. But if they raised their rates to compensate for higher wages, operators might price themselves beyond the means of Idaho families. In a state with a shortage of workers, the last thing you want is a family with a parent who can’t afford to work outside the home.

One obvious solution might be public investment. When lawmakers passed through $15 million in federal funds for the Idaho Child Care Expansion Grants in 2022, they helped fund 20 total child care businesses and expanded child care slots by 2,000.

This year, however, lawmakers have focused on tax cuts:

-- A $253 million income tax break that delivers most of the benefits to the wealthiest families.

-- A $50 million tax credit that will help families already rich enough to afford private schooling.

-- A $100 million property tax package that would be unnecessary if House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, would simply agree to update the Homestead Exemption for nearly a decade’s inflation, thereby reversing the tax shift that gave commercial property owners a windfall at the expense of ordinary homeowners.

-- A $50 million increase in the sales tax grocery credit, something that falls short of repealing the most regressive of taxes — a 6% tax on all food purchases.

So that leaves virtually nothing to invest in child care.

Not that Idaho’s repuation on that score is exemplary.

By the time the Gem State opted to begin licensing child care facilites in 1987, it was among the last — if not the last — of the states to do so.

It has resisted spending money on early childhood education, even to the point of refusing available federal dollars.

According to Child Care Aware of America, Idaho’s oversight of child care operations is ranked dead last — 52nd when you include the Defense Department and the District of Columbia. The state of Washington ranks third. Utah is 16th. Nevada comes in at 29th. Oregon is ranked 32nd. Montana is 38th. Wyoming is 46th.

One huge reason for Idaho’s abysmal scores is how it crams more young children into child care centers. Only Georgia and New Mexico match the Gem State for the highest child-to-staff ratios.

For instance, Idaho allows one adult staffer to care for up to six infants or eight toddlers.

And what was Rep. Rod Furniss’ solution?

The Rigby Republican proposed removing the ratios entirely. As long as a provider was “within sight or normal hearing range of the child and near enough to render immediate assistance,” it was all right with him. That way, more children could fill existing child care centers — and more operators might be encouraged to get into the business.

It was all right with the 54 House members who voted for it, too. Among them were Reps. Kyle Harris, R-Lewiston, Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, and Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock.

A substitute filling in for Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, was among 15 House members who voted no.

By the time it got to the Senate, however, the idea of removing all staffing limits stalled. So, an amended version merely weakens the most lenient staffing ratios in the country:

-- The standard remains six infants per adult.

-- The new law would allow nine toddlers per adult, up from the current limit of eight.

-- The limit would rise to 13 preschoolers from 12 per adult.

It gets worse. As Idaho Education News noted, the Legislature would preempt those dozen Idaho communities that have decided to impose more stringent standards. Among them is Moscow, where there’s a limit of three children younger than 1 year old to each adult and no more than six children ages 1 to 3 years old to each staffer.

Whatever you want to say about this, it’s fairly clear what matters to Idaho lawmakers.

Keeping Idaho children safe is not one of their priorities. — M.T.