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Editorial: Likins should bring childcare to 'optimal level'

After a $37,500 raise in child care subsidy program last year, the UA Budget Committee is once again faced with a challenge to help bring the program to its full potential.

A recent Associated Students proposal to University of Arizona President Peter Likins and the Budget Committee - slated for decision within the month - seeks a $25,000 increase in child care funding. The child care debate has fluctuated over the past couple years, seeing a rejection of a proposed $100,000 last April. But ASUA President Cisco Aguilar says their most recent proposal will bring the program to an optimal level. But the optimal level cannot be fully reached until the university is able to provide student parents with on-campus or nearby child care facilities. The ASUA Senate lobbied for this initiative with the help of a child care advocate in November of 1998, but since then, the idea seems to have diminished to a mere pipe dream.

Whereas the crusade for increased child care funds has been increasingly successful, Likins and the Budget Committee have yet to address a long-term plan to accommodate student parents. The current budget for annual child care subsidies totals $50,000, but this is a mere third of the subsidy set aside for UA staff and faculty. Student parents may be balancing 30- to 40-hour work weeks and a full course load, in addition to full-time parenting. This means sacrifices financially, especially if the parent does not qualify for assistance from the Department of Economic Security.

Child care facilities on or near campus would provide parents - students, staff and faculty - more time with their children. This ultimately benefits the community as a whole, not just the individuals concerned for the time being.

Likins made an indefinite pledge to the ASUA Senate in the fall of 1998, saying that the idea of a new, on-campus child care facility was feasible, but the money was hard to find.

"He (Likins) made a promise that this would be a priority," then-ASUA Senator Josue Limon said, "What does that mean?" And after more than a year of debate on the topic, it is time for Likins to take a truly firm stance on the subject. If child care is truly a priority for the university, it is time that the facilities and funds for a campus-area child care facility be investigated on in-depth and concrete grounds.

This week's proposed $25,000 child care subsidy increase is a step in the right direction, but those funds could be combined with the $150,000 subsidy for staff and faculty in order to create a long-term solution to the child care problem. A facility for the children of students, faculty and staff members is really the only way to bring the UA child care program to its optimal level while obliging the entire community.