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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Should I Expand My Daycare?
melskids 03:59 PM 04-29-2010
my phone has been ringing off the hook lately...which i guess is a good thing!!!!

however, i am only licensed for 5 (Because i have two under two yrs old) plus 2 SA. i could go "group" which i think doubles the ratio

my question is...is it worth it? insurance would double, i have to hire an assistant, of course increased costs of food, supplies, etc.

can anyone here (i'm in NY by the way) who is group tell me if they make a profit off of being group size, or should i just stay where i'm at? i'm all for filling a need in the community, but would dread the extra work or hassles to not make a profit. going rate where i am is $125 a week, so by the time i pay an assistant minimum wage, youre looking at 2 1/2 kids worth of tuition right there.

and how different are the regs when you go to group? i'm sure they are strickter cause it would be a "license" and not a "registration"

thanks!
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Childminder 05:22 PM 04-29-2010
I'm anticipating the answers to this thread as I'm in the same predicament. Can't wait to see the responses.
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gbcc 04:05 AM 04-30-2010
Sorry, this is going to be a long answer!

I live in NY as well and recently went group this past October. The regs are not too much different but they are interpreted differently. For instance the reg that states you must provide for a safe playarea or something like that, when I was registered it meant keep the home and outside free of chemicals or tripping ect. Now that I am licensed it means chemicals, animal feces (even not my own), and a fence. With myself and others I have spoken to the state stops by every other month. When I was registered I only saw them once per year. I don't do anything wrong, but it's a hassel.

As far as money, I was a bit concerned because in NY you have to have a disability policy ($60 per year) and workers comp ($350 per year) policy on employees. You also have to pay taxes wkly depending on the amount of the employees check. I figured everthing out and if I hired my assistant 40 hours per week than I just barely broke even and considering the hassels I wasn't sure it was worth it. I love having the company and adult conversation though! So what I did was divide the day up. We have infants so we can have 12 children, without infants 14. I can have 6 myself without needing her. So I have 6 school ager spots and 6 toddler/preschool slots. She works in the am for 2 hours and then comes back in the pm for an hour. That is only 15 hours per hour plus I am making money on 4 additional school ager spots. For half days I try to get friends to help me out so I don't have to pay her and her taxes. The taxes are aweful. We have to send in a check quarterly for taxes. Last week she worked 25 hours at $8 per hour and I needed to set aside nearly $50 for just that week in taxes. My accountant said about $900 per year will go towards her taxes if she averages 25 hours per week. So, I cut her down to 15. The accountant also told me that if I do my deductions right I will get most of that money back in my taxes.

All the info I can think of for now! Sorry so long!!
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melskids 04:45 AM 04-30-2010
bear with me...i'm a little slow when it comes to the business end and money part of it....lol

if you pay her $8 an hour the taxes are withheld from that money, right? she makes $8 an hour gross, not take home , right? so the tax money really comes out of her pay? or you pay taxes on top of that?!
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nannyde 06:22 AM 04-30-2010
I wrote a big response last night but it got eaten.

I've been doing this for 16 years and have had pretty much every version of an assistant I can within my State.

My State allows for four different registrations. The biggest two are a single very experienced person who can have eight children full time with no more than three under 18 months. That's what I currently have. I have a SA but am not required to. She does not have to be here at all so I can pick and choose when I have her. She's not allowed to be alone with the children regardless of her experience. I can't use her as a substitute for me when I have to go to appointments.

I could hire a "co-provider" which would allow me to have 12 full time plus 2 part time with no more than four being under 18 months. This is what I had for 2006-2008. The co provider has to be experienced and/or have a degree in early childhood. Neither the provider or co provider can be alone with more than eight children with no more than three under the age of 18 months.

Okay so that's my two options for having more kids. I have tried it both ways and found that there really isn't more money in having the expanded registration for many reasons:

It's very scarry in this economy to have to keep up to 12 slots filled and possibly 2 part time slots.

When I get past 8 kids to pay for a seasoned coprovider most of the money to have the coprovider goes to the higher salary a co provider gets because of education and experience.

Finding a staff assistant... of any kind.. who doesn't want to bring their kid or kids for free is VERY difficult. Having an assitants kid in the house is even harder. Assistant kids or not their kids still take slots in the day care.

Once I got past 8 kids then the assistant had to be on site from the point of the ninth kid arriving until we were back down to eight kids. This meant I had to pay her for nap time. THAT gets expensive. It's very difficult to find 2.5 hours worth of non direct care of the kids work for them to do while the kids are sleeping. Having her take a lunch break on site helped a little but she didn't want an hour lunch every day. She wanted a half hour or she wanted to leave on her lunch break which I couldn't allow because of having more than eight kids.

It took 2.5 kids plus her kid in day care to cover all the costs associated with her... salary... taxes... food.. her kids food... etc. So I basically could only have an extra 1.5-2 kids salary as profit IF we were at the full 12 kids we could have with her. This is compared to having a lower paid, lower hours SA with my current eight kids.

The other consideration is you getting bumped up in tax liability when you have more kids. You have to make sure that even after you pay your SA's stuff that the extra income you do make doesn't all go to taxes for having a higher income bracket.

So there are a lot of issues. Money is just one of them.

SA kid(s) is a huge problem. They take a slot but the SA doesn't want to pay for that slot when they are not working. Any time there kid is sick or they are sick you end up with the extra kids you have to compensate her and no helper. That gets really dicey and difficult. Finding a back up person who can handle a bunch of kids that just comes now and then is very hard.

The behavior of the SA kid and the SA's response can ruin your whole day care. I've had two that have had their kids here and it really only worked out when they were really little. As soon as they got old enough to have an opinion then it bit by bit turned into my SA trying to keep their kid happy instead of making me happy. Also, a SA that breast feeds on the clock can get REALLY expensive and difficult to manage. You end up spending a chunk of money every day paying her to on demand feed her kid. It lessens her availability to the other kids dramatically compared to a formula fed infant.

It's also very tempting for them to want to sit and one to one their kid with something not measurable like breast feeding. You can't tell how much the kid has eaten and do a schedule like the other babies. It can come up a lot where her kid needs to be fed... over and over.. and working around that gets costly. I had to solve it by not allowing any bf on the clock. That solved it immediately.

Extra kids will most likely mean you HAVE to have them during nap time. That could be as much as 25-30 percent of the salary at a time when you rarely really need them except for to evacuate kids in an emergency.

Managing SO many families is very very very hard. You have a lot of driveway congestion, a lot of daily phone calls, a lot of different schedules, etc. It is a lot of extra work that you as the business owner has to do that may end up netting you only one/two salaries per year.

The one thing that stands out in your post is your idea that you can pay a staff assistant minimum wage. You MIGHT be able to get someone who will take that pay but there is a lot of issues that go along with a minimum wage employee. Absences and lack of commitment to the job is one of many. Day Care workers have a very high turnover rate. If you don't pay them a decent salary you will go thru them like paper towels. The minimum wage worker is the most highly sought after worker right now. They can easily leave and get another job for that kind of money. They are highly in demand even if they only work for a short time. If you hire a higher paid worker to get around those issues you often end up cutting more into the little amount of profit you get for the extra kids that support her.

Another note about child care workers: It is very difficult to find someone who is willing to do this work for low pay who isn't obese. The vast majority of applicants I have had in the last 1.5 years has been morbidly obese. Finding a lower paid worker who can PHYSICALLY do this job becomes an increasingly more difficult task.

Last thought: The other really difficult task now is finding a SA who is not addicted to the cell phone. The cell phone is a HUGE issue now. If you do hire one put a stop to the cell phone during any working hours and especially if you have her do any kind of driving. It's a huge liability to allow someone on the cell phone texting when they are working with small children. Finding someone who is willing to put it away and stay off of it any time they are on the clock is pretty hard. I had one last year who went as far as to bring in a dummy phone to put away on my table (to make it look like she was not using hers) and still kept hers on her even after the second and final warning. Third time she used MY cell phone that I provided her to keep her off of it. She was texting while driving my son... after the second warning and the finding of the dummy phone. Had to fire her over the use of the phone. She just could NOT work without texting.
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nannyde 06:25 AM 04-30-2010
Originally Posted by gbcc:
Sorry, this is going to be a long answer!

I live in NY as well and recently went group this past October. The regs are not too much different but they are interpreted differently. For instance the reg that states you must provide for a safe playarea or something like that, when I was registered it meant keep the home and outside free of chemicals or tripping ect. Now that I am licensed it means chemicals, animal feces (even not my own), and a fence. With myself and others I have spoken to the state stops by every other month. When I was registered I only saw them once per year. I don't do anything wrong, but it's a hassel.

As far as money, I was a bit concerned because in NY you have to have a disability policy ($60 per year) and workers comp ($350 per year) policy on employees. You also have to pay taxes wkly depending on the amount of the employees check. I figured everthing out and if I hired my assistant 40 hours per week than I just barely broke even and considering the hassels I wasn't sure it was worth it. I love having the company and adult conversation though! So what I did was divide the day up. We have infants so we can have 12 children, without infants 14. I can have 6 myself without needing her. So I have 6 school ager spots and 6 toddler/preschool slots. She works in the am for 2 hours and then comes back in the pm for an hour. That is only 15 hours per hour plus I am making money on 4 additional school ager spots. For half days I try to get friends to help me out so I don't have to pay her and her taxes. The taxes are aweful. We have to send in a check quarterly for taxes. Last week she worked 25 hours at $8 per hour and I needed to set aside nearly $50 for just that week in taxes. My accountant said about $900 per year will go towards her taxes if she averages 25 hours per week. So, I cut her down to 15. The accountant also told me that if I do my deductions right I will get most of that money back in my taxes.

All the info I can think of for now! Sorry so long!!
The hard part in your situation is finding a 15 hour a week employee. It's very hard to find someone who will have a commitment to a job with only 15 hours of pay.
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melskids 08:06 AM 04-30-2010
thanks ladies.....that is alot of useful information.

i think i may stay right where i'm at...lol

i was leaning towards that anyway, but it really does break my heart to turn people away who are in need. but sadly, it all goes back to the $ issue, and whether or not i want the extra work or to put in the extra time. i'm thinking its just not woth it.

my mom is considering moving closer to me in the next year or two, so that would be ideal. i know what they say about family working together, but she would do a good job and we get along well. she used to help me in my old home when i did daycare there (before i moved away). she's not so much into the curriculum part of the daycare, but she is good to the kids , is an awesome cook, and LOVES to clean. she would keep herself busy just doing that!!! and luckily she doesnt even know how to use a cell phone...so no problem there...lol
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gbcc 09:47 AM 04-30-2010
Originally Posted by nannyde:
The hard part in your situation is finding a 15 hour a week employee. It's very hard to find someone who will have a commitment to a job with only 15 hours of pay.
Actually, you would not believe the amount of responses I have gotten. I too thought it would be difficult but I had over 14 applicants. Choose the one who didn't apply actually, I sought her out. I still get calls every week from many of those applicants wondering if things worked out and to keep them in mind for the future if something happens. For me the hardest part has been finding a sub.
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melskids 10:07 AM 04-30-2010
Originally Posted by gbcc:
Actually, you would not believe the amount of responses I have gotten. I too thought it would be difficult but I had over 14 applicants. Choose the one who didn't apply actually, I sought her out. I still get calls every week from many of those applicants wondering if things worked out and to keep them in mind for the future if something happens. For me the hardest part has been finding a sub.
that thought crossed my mind too. what happens when your assistant calls in sick? do you have back up, or do you have to cancel care?
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nannyde 10:40 AM 04-30-2010
Originally Posted by gbcc:
Actually, you would not believe the amount of responses I have gotten. I too thought it would be difficult but I had over 14 applicants. Choose the one who didn't apply actually, I sought her out. I still get calls every week from many of those applicants wondering if things worked out and to keep them in mind for the future if something happens. For me the hardest part has been finding a sub.
Have you found an employee that STAYS with you for any length of time at only fifteen hours a week?
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Janet 10:55 AM 04-30-2010
and then I changed my mind when I realized that if I went group, then everything that I loved about my daycare would change. I had terrible luck with finding a reliable assistant and one of my assistants brought her own 2 kids with her for free. Paying her plus giving her free daycare was bad enough, but then add in that her children behaved like animals and she didn't see a problem with it. She also called in all the time and therefore I had to get a back up for my assistant. Never again!

I have a sub who comes in for a day each week for a while and she covers for me if I am out of town or if I have appointments, etc. We really work well together because she and I share most of the same philosophies on child care. I trust her and she's reliable, but I still wouldn't want to go group, even with her as my co-worker. I like working with a smaller group of kids, so the capacity of 6 kids is perfect for me.
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