Families pay $10K for child care in SC, audit finds. Is access key to lower cost?

Families in Richland and Lexington counties each pay on average more than $11,000 each for child care, and some working parents in the Midlands struggle to find providers within a reasonable distance of their home.

As the average price of child care for infants in South Carolina exceeds $10,400 annually, a state review of the Department of Social Services’ oversight of providers intended to help address affordability found room for improvement.

The Legislative Audit Council released its review of how the state Department of Social Services permits and regulates child care providers around South Carolina this month.

The report also analyzed how much South Carolinians were paying on average for child care in every county, pulling data from the U.S. Department of Labor. The Labor Department uses market rate data ending in 2022 and estimated the cost by the end of 2024, according to the report.

While annual costs for infant childcare varies across the state, the price took up anywhere from 7.7% to 18% of counties’ median family income. The cost burden has risen across South Carolina in less than a decade, according to U.S. Department of Labor data.

South Carolina also struggles with gaps in accessible child care, though there are wide disparities between counties. On average, 12.8% of children under six don’t have access to child care within a reasonable distance, according to the report.

To address the affordability and access challenges, the council looked at how the Department of Social Services regulated child care providers in South Carolina.

It found the agency didn’t track how long it took to license new child care facilities and didn’t have clear policies for revoking licenses from problematic programs. The licensing process for those new child care centers also may be delayed without an online portal, meaning providers have to submit their paper work over email, mail or in-person, according to the report. More than half of providers surveyed said a portal would make the licensing process easier.

“This can contribute to longer processing times, increased administrative workload and potential delays in application review and approval,” the report reads.

A voluntary quality rating system for child care centers run by DSS could also be clarified and have improved communication, the report found. The report also said DSS’s fire safety inspection procedures may not comply with state law.

In a response to the report, DSS director Tony Catone said the department would implement some of the recommendations, particularly to improve timeliness for providers. He also wrote some issues would have to be taken up by lawmakers.

“The department agrees with many recommendations particularly those advancing automation, transparency, consistency, and timeliness-and has already begun implementation of a range of recommendations contained in the report,” Catone wrote.

Fingerprinting concerns

Child care facilities must run background checks on new employees, which including a fingerprint scan. But the Legislative Audit Council’s report questioned how the fingerprinting was being paid for and whether its availability caused hiring delays.

The report found DSS illegally used federal dollars to pay for fingerprint scans for new childcare staff, which Catone objected to in his response. The Department of Social Services allegedly spent nearly $1.8 million over a roughly four-year period in federal funding on fingerprint scans.

The federal dollars, which the report said did not have to go toward paying for fingerprint scans, could have gone to other causes to improve child care access, the Legislative Audit Council argued.

While state law requires the new child care employee or facility to cover costs of the fingerprint scans, Catone said federal dollars were available help providers following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“DSS has used allowable federal funds expenditures to eliminate barriers, reduce churn, and support compliance,” Catone wrote. “DSS respectfully disagrees that resuming the imposition of these additional costs on child care providers is necessary or optimal at this time.”

The report also said the company used to complete fingerprint scans did not have adequate hours or locations, which could cause hiring delays or a loss of qualified applicants.

“In our survey, child care providers reported losing qualified applicants and difficulty in maintaining staffing ratios due to the length of the background check process, which would include the wait time to receive a fingerprint scan appointment,” the LAC report reads.