Childcare and kinder fees hike for most Melbourne councils
Despite many families feeling the financial pressure of the pandemic, two thirds of Melbourne councils will be hiking fees for childcare and kinder. Here’s what your council will be charging come September.
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Families will face a childcare lottery come September, with two thirds of Melbourne councils hiking fees and the rest freezing them.
At least 11 of the councils in Melbourne that run a childcare or kinder service are raising fees and charging parents up to $8.50 more a day.
Other councils have chosen to freeze fees amid financial pressure on the community.
Yarra City councillor Stephen Jolly labelled hikes as “absolutely outrageous” and said “at a time we need assistance from council, we’re getting a kick in the teeth”.
“At this time of basically depression, we need to be dipping into our cash reserves,” he said.
“Otherwise what will happen in weeks and months to come is we won’t have a local economy left.”
Budget documents show fees at childcare or kinder services are rising by 2 per cent or more in Casey, Glen Eira, Hume, Kingston, Knox, Manningham, Stonnington, Whitehorse, Yarra and Yarra Ranges.
Most families will face the new rates from September 28, when the Federal Government’s transition scheme ends, which locked in previous fees as a condition of receiving support payments.
Changes to a single day of childcare would hit parents' hip pockets hardest, with hikes of $8.50 at Stonnington’s Hornbrook Centre (applying from January 1), up $5 in Whitehorse and at Manningham’s MC Square, $3 at services in Glen Eira and $2.50 at centres in the City of Yarra.
Meanwhile, childcare and kinder fees were frozen in Melbourne, Monash, Moonee Valley, Port Phillip and Banyule city councils.
Cr Jolly believed all councils should be freezing rates and fees and claimed they were “taking advantage” of the community’s inability to provide democratic input during the lockdown.
“That money could easily have been made back once the economy starts back up,” he said.
A Glen Eira spokesperson said fees increased “in line with the costs of delivering the early learning programs” while Monash Mayor Stuart James said it froze fees “because we don’t want to put additional burden on families at this time”.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said childcare fees would stay at the same rate to the year before “in recognition of the financial challenges families face”.
Municipal Association of Victoria president Coral Ross said the impact on councils of not getting JobKeeper payments had “left a large financial hole, which continues to be felt”.
She said fee increases would not be needed if the Commonwealth continued its Transition Payments beyond September.
All councils will have adopted their 2020/21 budgets by the end of the month.
STAGE 4 CHILDCARE RULES EXPLAINED