Stephanie Heakins was a student at Riverview Children’s Center in Verona before advancing to kindergarten. Now, a couple decades later, she is leading the very same Allegheny County early childhood education center. What she did not expect when taking over the director’s position in June was a four-month state budget impasse.
“Loans were never really an option…paying interest on loans was just not feasible,” said Heakins, director of Riverview Children’s Center. “Laying off teachers was not an option because we would never get them back.”
The center receives about $55,000 a month from the state of Pennsylvania for its Pre-K Counts program, which provides free pre-kindergarten classes to low-income families. Over 50 students are currently enrolled, and there is always a waitlist, Heakins said. They do not offer Head Start, another free early childhood education program, which receives both state and federal funding.
Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs went without state dollars during the budget impasse, causing some providers to take loans and dip into rainy day funds. About 1,200 Pre-K Counts and Head Start providers serve over 36,000 children, according to the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children.
Heakins said the center was forced to dip into its reserves throughout the budget impasse.
“[The budget impasse] was a big thing, but now we are hoping we can get back on track and start planning for the future,” she said.
The center received state funds for July through October and is awaiting complete payment for the month of November, Heakins said. December payments are in progress, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office.
Uniontown-based Duck Hollow Discovery Learning Center took out personal and business loans to continue their Pre-K Counts programming throughout the state budget impasse. The center also received a Budget Bridge loan through the state treasurer’s office.
“We are now working to figure out how to repay the [Budget Bridge] loan, but thankfully the interest was waived and it’s mainly just revising our budget now that we have all [the state] funds,” said Mary Belski, fiscal manager of Duck Hollow Discovery Learning Center. “We’ve paid back our other loans as well.”
Whitney Wall, regional director of Brightside Academy Pittsburgh, said her organization, which has eight Pittsburgh sites including one in McKees Rocks, had to cut back on spending in various ways.
Now that the budget is in place, Wall said Brightside is “catching up on things,” although some expenditures won’t be made. For example, Wall said, “We usually do things for our families at Thanksgiving, but we didn’t get to do that. We would have ordered things for our kids for Christmas by now, but we haven’t had a chance to do that yet because we’re still catching up.
“We’re just rushing around trying to make sure the kids don’t see the hurt like we do.”
Wall said Brightside, which employs about 65 people in all – including three at the McKees Rocks location, which has about 15 students – wasn’t forced to lay off any employees. But she said employees weren’t getting their full eight hours because the lack of state funding hampered Brightside’s ability to pay those employees.
“They might have come in for our heavier peaks for the day or to give breaks,” she said. “Instead of being here for eight hours, they might have only been here for four.”
Brightside offers several programs, including Pre-K Counts and Early Head Start. She said Brightside continued accepting new enrollees during the budget impasse and used reserves to help weather the fiscal storm. If the impasse had continued, Wall said, “we wouldn’t have been able to continue to employ or enroll.”
Heather Smoyer, with KinderCare Learning Companies, said state budget impasses always put child care providers in an extremely difficult position – especially those operating Pre-K Counts classrooms.
“Providers rely on timely payments from the state to keep programs like Pre-K Counts running,” Smoyer said.
Smoyer said that while some providers had to delay opening or temporarily close their classrooms because funding was uncertain, KinderCare decided to keep our Pre-K Counts classrooms open throughout the state, despite the funding uncertainty.
“We know working parents depend on consistent, high-quality care, so we did what was necessary to ensure children and families in our programs did not experience disruption, even though this meant our Pre-K Counts classrooms operated without state reimbursement for three months,” she said.
Brightside Academy in McKees Rocks is housed inside the Father Ryan Arts Center building. (Photo by Sonja Reis)
Some preschool entities that entered into loan agreements were originally required to pay back the initial Treasury investment plus a 4.5% annual interest rate.
However, the adopted budget waives this interest rate. The bill also states that a treasurer cannot issue loans to entities impacted by a budget impasse for the purpose of “replacing anticipated Commonwealth appropriations.” Sixty-six Pre-K Counts and Head Start providers took out loans through the program, totaling over $20.7 million.
About 95 Pre-K Counts and Head Start providers across 32 counties took on nearly $20 million in loans to mitigate the delay in funding, according to surveys conducted in October by Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA.
Belski said state Pre-K Counts payments for December and January are pending in their business account.
“That has never happened before,” she said. “Our payment date has always been the 20th or 21st of each month for the current month, so to see it’s in the queue and that it’s going to be deposited was reassuring.”
Rebecca Belski, owner and executive director of Duck Hollow Discovery Learning Center, said the return of state funding has allowed the center to host more events for children and their families. If the budget impasse were to have continued through December, the center would have had to close their Pre-K Counts program.
The governor made a stop in the region earlier this month to discuss investments in the state budget for recruitment and retention of early childhood educators. The new budget includes a $25 million Child Care Staff Recruitment and Retention Program, which will provide roughly $450 annually per employee to licensed Child Care Works providers. Shapiro estimates payments will be made to 55,000 child care workers statewide.
“I don’t think $400 is going to sway somebody to take the job,” said Joanne Thralls, owner and executive director of the Red Balloon Early Learning Center in Scott Township. “We appreciate the gesture, but it’s not enough. Child care employees do not make enough money.”
Mary Merryman, director of the Presbyterian Day School in Coraopolis, agreed that child care workers are underpaid. That’s a big reason why it’s so hard to find teachers, and consequently why there’s a shortage of child care centers, she said.
“We were the only center in Coraopolis until this year when a little center opened down the road,” said Merryman, whose center is operated by the Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis. “But that still doesn’t cover all the kids we could be supporting and providing day care for.
“Coraopolis is a child care desert – there are not enough centers or programs to support the number of children under 5 in our area.”
Merryman and Lilly Kuhn, the Coraopolis center’s assistant director, have traveled to Harrisburg the past three years to advocate for early childhood education. She said the $25 million included in the budget is a fair start for centers across the state.
“That will definitely help,” she said. “If we can retain teachers, we can offer more services to families.”
Merryman said getting the $25 million included in the budget for staff retention and recruitment as a line item is a “big win.”
“Since we brought it to everyone’s attention, now we can fight to have it increased each year, so that things get better” she said.
According to the PA Partnerships for Children, as of September 2024, there were about 3,000 open staffing positions in the child care workforce, with the average salary of $29,480. Kindergarten teachers make an average of $67,670, according to the report.
The Red Balloon Early Learning Center offers both Pre-K Counts and Head Start programming, and Thralls took out a line of credit during the budget impasse.
“[Another budget impasse] is always a concern or fear, but in child care, you learn to be on your own,” Thralls said. “Hopefully we don’t go through a federal and state [impasse] at the same time again, but we’re more prepared.”
Thralls said the center received all of its funding for July through November and is awaiting December’s.
The new state budget also allocates $326.8 million for Pre-K Counts and $90.9 million for Head Start programs, an increase of $9.5 million for Pre-K Counts and $22,000 for Head Start programs.
“We’re still waiting to see how [the increase in monthly funds] will be rolled out, but it gives my teachers an extra $14,000 that we can distribute between them to assist with salaries and benefits,” Rebecca Belski said.
Erin Yudt is a reporter with Pittsburgh Media Partnership Newsroom, part of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. She most recently was a multimedia content producer and digital reporter at WKBN in Youngstown and is a graduate of Point Park University. Reach her at erin.yudt@pointpark.edu.
The PMP Newsroom is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania. Find out more information on foundation and corporate funders here.
West Hills Gazette reporter/editor Frank Garland contributed to this report.
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