NY Legal Daycare | Imamother

amother

Thu, Jul 08 2021, 1:38 pm

There is a big push now to help "working class" families with childcare. My area is not one where people work around being eligible for government programs but with grants like essential workers grant many people who are not foodstamps/wic etc qualify for government help with childcare. I live in NY not NYC.

I have been toying with the idea of opening a childcare center for a while. I would start small like a group family day care in my house and then hopefully expand to a full center. Legally one adult can only watch 2 children if they are under age 2. It seems nearly impossible to make any money if you are taking infants. The ratio changes to one adult for every 6 children once the child turns two. That is a lot more workable.

Also does anyone have a group family day care in their homes or actually own a childcare center and can point me to resources. Anyone know what the max CHS pays in lkwd, I am sure most programs are fairly similiar rates. How does anyone profit by doing everything legal and taking kids under 2??

amother

cornflower

Thu, Jul 08 2021, 7:18 pm

I have a group family daycare. I live in NY. The laws might be different elsewhere. In NY, there is a ratio of 2 providers for 12 children who are 2 years old and up. You can have an additional 2 school age children before and after traditional school hours. I run my program as a 3-4 year old Playgroup so those additional children would not apply to me. In NY it does not matter how many providers you have, the maximum is 12+2. Both providers must be present at ALL times. There is screening, background checks etc and 30 hours bi annual training in addition to initial required training. One provider must have CPR and First Aid training. Lots of forms and documentation ready for review by inspector who usually makes unannounced visit every 4 months (pre-covid). Must relicense every 4 years, background checks, fingerprinting etc every 5. They are always adding more rules and regulations and forms. In 26 years I have only had one person get day care subsidy and it was many years ago so I am not familiar with what is paid now.

amother

Amber

Thu, Jul 08 2021, 7:34 pm

amother [ cornflower ] wrote:

Are you in NYC? I have basically the same situation as you. Though I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to have 4 school age kids, which I never do. I have a 2-3 yr old playgroup and I make sure to not take too many kids (more than 4 of them, 2 for me and 2 for my assistant) who are not 2 by September.

I find one of the biggest expenses for me is workers comp insurance/nysif for our employee. We also pay a payroll service. We do not have business insurance.

If you want to provide food it's very helpful to be legal because you can make all the money back plus some. I get between 750-1100 a month in food program money.

As long as you're on top of you and your assistant's trainings, make sure you have every single form for each child, and have your home set up properly, you should pass inspection just fine. We usually get inspected once a year.

Where I live barely anyone would qualify for vouchers so it's all out of pocket. I charge the going rate which is on the higher end for a playgroup. If I had to charge Lakewood type prices it wouldn't be worth it for me (and I sort of understand why they go so out of ratio there).