Metro Board of Health discusses city’s child care provider shortage

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - The COVID pandemic has changed many aspects of life, and now, city officials said shortages in child care providers may have also been affected.

The Metro Board of Health met Wednesday to discuss the city’s child care shortage.

Metro United Way said there are only 419 childcare providers in all of Jefferson County, and the city lost nine percent of those providers since March 2020.

Officials said nearly 100,000 Kentucky women left the workforce during the pandemic because of childcare and school closures.

Increasing wages was also discussed in Wednesday’s meeting, with the average pay for child care workers in the city coming to around $10.26 an hour.

Metro Councilwoman Cassie Chambers Armstrong said she is working with Metro United Way to expand the county’s land development code in order to incentivize more child care providers in the city.

“We also need to be looking improving the facilities of our childcare centers, making sure kids have access to outdoor play spaces, any sort of infrastructure needs that our centers have,” Chambers Armstrong said. “That’s something that I think has lots of support on council, is spending our stimulus dollars on these one time investments to improve our childcare sector.”

An ordinance is scheduled to be discussed on Thursday in Metro Council that would allow providers to open up in more spaces throughout the Louisville metro.