Affordable Child Care: Tulsa Lawmakers Discuss Affordability Solutions

The cost of child care continues to increase, often costing families hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each month and that's if they can even find available services.

Brent Skarky and State Representative Suzanne Schrieber from Tulsa appeared on News On 6 to discuss some initiatives aimed at making child care more affordable, as well as other priorities to support Oklahoma families and businesses.

Employer Tax Credit to Share Child Care Costs

"We are working very hard to create more affordability in child care by bringing in not just some support from the state, but also from our employers, and then that three-legged stool is also with families," said Schreiber.

The lawmakers have proposed a tax credit for employers who want to share the cost of child care with their employees. Schreiber explained the benefits:

"Our employers are really, really desperate to help out and fix this problem. They have absenteeism. They have a bunch of their workforce is just not there because they cannot find affordable, safe, quality child care. And so we have this cost problem. We have a space problem. We want to try to encourage employers from the state level by giving them this tax incentive to share in the cost with their employees," she said.

The tax credit would allow employers to design their own child care support programs, whether that's direct reimbursements to employees or setting up on-site child care.

What Would the Tax Credit Look Like?

"So it's a credit. So at the end of the year, whenever they file their corporate taxes, they get a credit for what they decide to share, and they design their own programs. This is a very important piece of it, as every employer would make it look like what they want it to look like, and how that would work for their employees. So whether that's dollars directly to an employee, where they want to give certain employees or any of their employees, some reimbursements for child care, or whether they want to buy spots at a nearby child care, or whether they want to stand up their own child care. That's all within the tax credit provisions that we would be offering through House Bill 1848," said Schreiber.

Boosting the Workforce, Today and Tomorrow

Beyond child care, the lawmakers are also focused on initiatives to strengthen Oklahoma's workforce, both now and in the future.

"We're worried about the workforce for tomorrow, and that takes into consideration kids that are in high school and college right now," said Skarky. "We need to get them more opportunities to be hands-on with learning. We're talking about internships. We're talking about apprenticeships."

The lawmakers are working on bills to reduce the liability for employers hosting these hands-on learning programs, in order to "allow internship programs, apprenticeship programs, to really flourish in Oklahoma, increasing not just the workforce, but increasing the skilled workforce, getting better jobs for Oklahomans, but also getting highly skilled workers for Oklahoma employees or employers."