Daycare stays open for essential workers, but says government hasn't paid May bill

A Halifax-area daycaresays it's on the verge of financial collapse because it has stayed open during the lockdown, but hasn't gotten May's fundingfrom the province.

Unlike schools, licensed child-care centres have remainedopen whileNova Scotia battles an aggressive third wave of COVID-19, even as some parents choose to keep their children at home during the provincewide lockdown.

Mrs. Robinson's Childcare Centre in Fall River normally sees 41 children a day walk through its doors, but now the facility is down to one child.

"We're in a pretty tough spot right now," Lindsay Awalt, the centre's co-owner, said Friday. "As of today, still no funding has been released."

Parents whose children are staying at homeare not paying fees, though their spots are retained. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is supposed to cover those fees.

The province has encouraged parents to keep their children at home where possible, so that daycare spots can be temporarily given to children of essential workers.

Awalt said the centrehasless than a dollar in itsbusiness bank accounts. The facility's employee was paid this week, but Awalt and co-owner Molly Rogers were not.

"We were able to put [our employee]on the payroll this week, but moving forward, we're unsure of how everything is going to look," Awalt said.

Poor communication

She said the parents of the one child who remains at the daycare are essential workers who will be forced to look for another daycare if no funding arrives by Monday.

Awalt said the government has ignoredall emails and phone calls since May 3.

"If we knew it was going to take this long, it might have been beneficial for us to layoff and close down our centre and reopen when the numbers and capacity are higher," she said.

The Education Department told CBC News on Friday afternoon that it has spoken to the daycare and it should receive funding soon.

Mother worried

Cory Mooney has three young children, one of whom usually spends his mornings at thedaycare's preschool program.

She said her son has been home for three weeks now. Mooney said her neighbourhood has no other daycares and needs Awalt's operation to continue.

"She's a new business owner. She's young and she's fantastic at what she does. We talked about supporting the child-care industry and it just hasn't happened," she said

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