Aussie Childcare Network Forum

Hi I have run my family daycare service for the past ten years and have loved every moment.
I have just been informed by my scheme that because of the Government cuts our yearly membership will rise to $500, I will also now pay the scheme 6% of my weekly income (this will rise if educators leave the scheme).
I have kept my fees at the lower end of the market helping lower income families many who have been with me for years.
The hourly Levy the scheme charges parents has also gone up from 65cent a hour of care to $1 per hour per child with no cap, so for a family with two full time children on 50 hours of care a week the levy will jump to $100 a week on top of my fees making it unaffordable for lower income families.
Last year we lost income when we went from five children under full time school age to four (our kindy age child who usually had younger or older siblings in daycare could know longer be counted as our fifth child) what other industry have forced its workers to lose around 25% of its income over two years
I would like to hear from other family day care educators how there schemes are managing the cuts this is my first time on this forum all input is welcome thanks in advance.
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Hi Jacky,
What your describing is awful. $500 a year and $1 per hour parent levy, sometimes I wonder if the Government is trying to wipe out Family Day Care. You are not in Qld because our numbers have always been 4 under school age but did you know that the productivity commission has now recommended that they allow 5 under school age as long as all the children in the group are over 25mths old. Let see if that happens after all the mucking around to reduce it to 4, and who will want babies if you can only have 4 then or do we charge families with babies even more? My scheme charges 75cent an hour per child and no cap as a parent levy. It also charges us $5 a week but that is going up to $15 a week because our scheme has just figured out that centrelink is paying them so to speak and the scheme pays us. So they are going to collect the money from the parents which will save us a bit of work and they will pay us our full pay each week regardless of whether the parent has paid or not. In saying that we still have to do all the paperwork, they just collect the money so that will take our weekly fee to $15 and yearly $780. Jacky you do know that you can change schemes at any time and keep your families as long as you give your scheme the appropriate notice. Shop around, I know Educators in my area that even have schemes from another state, I don't know how that works but it is happening. My scheme in south east Qld has just taken on Educators in a scheme that closed doors in Townsville.
linsaa fdc

Hi linsaa
Thanks for your reply I found the information about the productivity commission very interesting it would be great to have the fifth child ratio back but not going to hold my breath on that one sadly just because it makes sense does not mean they will do it.
I like the scheme I am with, just wondering how others are dealing with the lack of funding they have to make up the money from somewhere if they don't get it from the government and unfortunately the obvious next place is the educators and families.
I feel very blessed to have a job I enjoy (mostly not nuts about paperwork lol) the morning after our scheme meeting I was taking the older children to school everyone was chatting happily I had two little ones in the double pushchair and we stopped to cross the road a car slowed down and waved us across they had the window open and I acknowledged them with a thank you as did the older children then out of the push chair their came a little voice calling his thank you I love moments like that.

Hi Jacky,
My scheme is Gowrie FDC, they had different branches all over Brisbane and they merged them hoping that it would prevent them losing funding. We haven't really heard anything else as yet.
I too like my scheme and won't be changing and I also love my job. My sister is a teacher, got her qualification later in life and said to me just yesterday, why don't I do something else where I can get paid super and holidays, sick days. But it's not just a job to us. In FDC we get to build relationships with families and children like no other occupation as we have the same children all day every day and for many many years. During the Easter holidays I will be getting a visit from a family that I had for 12 years. I looked after their little boy from six weeks old for 45-55 hours a week and they moved when he turned 12. His brother started at 16 weeks old, same hours and he was 8 when they moved.
Bye
linsaa fdc

Hi
This has just arisen with my scheme and i didn't know who to get information from
I am a new educator, and have been with my scheme for 8 weeks, every pay has been late and always discrepancies but the recent one was very similar to this and i cant understand why? Don't get me wrong i understand the levy fees are rising due to costs and reduced government support? However my scheme has now lowered the hourly rate charged to $5-28 per hr (advised at time of application that rate was $5-50 and educator levy 70c) they don't charge a parent levy. But now our educators levy is $1.07 per hr meaning we would be in essence now contracted to $4.21 phr per child, then tax and super from that?? We as educators have had no communication from our scheme regarding these changes, we just noticed our pay had been reduced, is this normal for schemes to just change rates and is there anywhere we as educators can get advice and information of our rights? I allocate a % of the hourly rate for resources and personal development to ensure i'm the best educator i can be and can provide sufficient resources but if my scheme continues to change rates and increase levy's i cannot keep to a budget

Hi Arlu8688,
I am an FDC Educator also. As far as I know FDC changed many years ago to Educators charging and setting our own fee schedule. Is your scheme some kind of community scheme? Even still you should be charging your own fees. What you are getting paid with all the expenses and documentation requirements is not enough. Don't they have to give you a month's notice to change things? Check your schemes policies and take it up with them. With the mistakes in your pays, is that from the parents ccb's changing? Parents more often than not don't tell us they have changed and we don't find out till we get our pay advice back and then they have to pay the difference. You do know that you can change schemes when ever you want as long as you give the appropriate notice as per scheme policy and you can take your families with you. I know my scheme north of Brisbane took on Educators from a scheme that shut down in Townsville. I don't know how that works as far as visits etc but I know that a lot of Educators in the shire are with schemes all over the place. A good way to start is to go to careforkids.com.au and type in your area and postcode, its roughly half way down on your right hand side of the page and to see what is available around your place and what they are charging. I have just recently changed schemes. The one I was with for 17 years just put the parent levy to $1.50 an hour that's a 100% increase and Educator levy up from $5 a week to 5% of our before tax and expenses income. I would be seriously looking at changing schemes as well, always read your scheme policies first so you know exactly where you stand, I wouldn't be able to handle a scheme that gives no communication, don't let one bad mob sour you away from FDC, its a great flexible job. Find a scheme that will support you the way they should.
Let me know how it goes for you
Linsaa fdc

Thank you so much Lisa, i really appreciate your advice.
I do love the job, and coming from being a mainstream childcare educator, FDC is much more satisfying.
I will definately follow up all that you have advised.
I did not know that we as educators set fees as this was not discussed when i joined this scheme. I am seriously going to look at other schemes in the next coming weeks. It is not a community scheme.
As far as i know we don't even have a parent levy?? But i will be investigating all of this on monday.
Needless to say everyone is the office knows me when i call because i hate incompetence!!!! hehehe

Hello
I am a family day care educator .Tell me the 2016 Admin Levy Rate .Has it increased from $ 1 ? My day care scheme was asking me for $1.10 cents .IS it good
What are the new rules on expenses for a family day care operator ?
Please update me .

Hi Moon45,
My old scheme went from 65cents an hour to $1.50 an hour for families and for educators from $5 a week to 5% of our before tax and expenses income. In light of that ridiculous increase I left and went to another scheme.
My new scheme charges families 95 cents an hour and charges educators $15 a week.... a very big difference.
A scheme can charge what ever admin levy they want....there is no set amount that the gov recommends so shop around if you feel you can get a better price.
As far as expenses go if you buy it or use it for your fdc work you can claim it......maybe not all of it if you use it partially for personal use as well but you can still claim part or most of it. Find out from other fdc educators who they use for accounting.
Linsaa fdc

Thanks so much Linda
What do u mean by educators rate ?
IS IT PER HOUR RATE OF A DAY CARE SCHEME for e.g $8 per hour for each child charged by educator for taking care of children

Sorry it's Linsaa

Educators set their own fee which is per hour per child then you have to add the scheme's levy on top of that.
So if you decide to charge $8 an hour per child and your scheme charges families .95cents an hour levy then the amount the parents pay is actually $8.95 an hour...then ccb and ccr comes off that.
Then a lot of schemes charge the Educators a fee, ours is $15 a week.
Is that what you are asking?

The Educators rate is the fee you charge per hour of care per child, then the scheme levy on top of that so if you charge $8 and scheme charges $1.05 an hour levy then the total for parents per hour is $9.05

Hello,

I have recently just started a family day care scheme (business owner) and I have stated to hire educators, but i am really confused at how everything works. My friend who advised me to try the scheme, charges 0.80 as levy per child and she has about 50 educators working under her business name, and they usually charge 0.80 times the amount of educators (50) times the making of hours a child does to initialise an income! How much do you earn usually per annum, if you don't mind me asking?

Thank you
Amee

amee wrote:Hello,

I have recently just started a family day care scheme (business owner) and I have stated to hire educators, but i am really confused at how everything works. My friend who advised me to try the scheme, charges 0.80 as levy per child and she has about 50 educators working under her business name, and they usually charge 0.80 times the amount of educators (50) times the making of hours a child does to initialise an income! How much do you earn usually per annum, if you don't mind me asking?

Thank you
Amee

Hi Amee,

Our FDC experts will help you out with your questions!

,
Lorina

Hi Amee,
If you have started and a Family Day Care scheme you should really know how everything works before you start hiring educators because how are you going to help them understand how things work if you don't.
This is how the levy (your pay works)
levy x hours x educators.
So if you charge .80 per hour per child per educator..... and an educator does 220 child hours of care a week.......80x 220= $176... you will get from that one educator $176 a week..... each educator will do different hours of care but if you average it out to roughly 200 child hours per educator you could earn with 50 educators
.80 levy x 200 hours x 50 educators x 52 weeks = $416,000 a year.... in saying that you have to employ at least a couple of coordinators but there is still plenty of profit.
Your role is to support your educators and most will start not knowing anything so you really need to know the systems ins and outs because there is a awful lot involved.
Have you got your approval yet and your policies done yet?