By Jem Anshaw
Voluntary redundancies, reduced hours for staff, and reduced extra activities for the kids are all on the cards at community preschools across the region following the state government announcing an increase in base award wages for childcare staff.
Negotiations about the pay increase have been happening for around 18 months, and it isn’t that the centres don’t want to pay their staff more, the issue is that their state government funding is not increasing to support it.
“We get a certain amount of funding from the state government, the rest of our income comes from fees or fundraising, about 85 per cent of our total income goes in wages,” Raelee Smith, Muswellbrook Preschool Kindergarten educational leader, explained.
“We can’t fund a 30 per cent wage increase with 15 per cent of our income, the cost of electricity, water, rates, insurance is all increasing as well.”
Last week the Muswellbrook centre hosted a meeting with State Member for Hunter Dave Layzell which was attended virtually by representatives from Merriwa Preschool, Scone and District Preschool, and Singleton Preschool to discuss the situation. Aberdeen and Murrurundi Centres were unable to have staff attend but had provided information for the meeting.
“We felt heard, felt valued, and we felt like he really understood our concerns,” Kelly Constable, Muswellbrook Preschool director, shared.
“He understands that we’re in a position that we just have to wait for the state budget to be released to know what our next steps are.
“He’s predicting we’ll need to meet again after the budget’s released and put a plan in place.”
Mr Layzell’s predictions have unfortunately been right, as when the NSW State Budget was announced on Tuesday there is no additional funding for community childcare centres to support the mandated pay increases.
Across all the community preschools in the region the situation is the same, meaning fees will need to increase and their parent committees will need to do even more fundraising in the community to cover expenses.
“We’ve already increased this year 25 per cent in our fees, and it’s still not making ends meet,” Kelly told The Hunter River Times.
“We’ll have to increase again in 2027 which is something that we never like to do, but our hands are tied at the moment with these increases coming through.”
Staff to student rations will not be impacted at the centres, but it will be the extra activities that enhance the children’s experience that will have to be cut.
“Then in the meantime, the early childhood teachers didn’t get included in the gender and undervaluation case at all, so we’re sitting on expired EAs since the last three years,” Raelee added.
“The gap between what they earn and what university trained staff earn is narrowing, and I think that after by June, if you’re an early years teacher someone with a TAFE qualification will actually earn more than you if you’re a room leader.”
