Every child care operator in Guelph and Wellington County have made their intentions known ahead of the Nov. 1 deadline on whether or not they want in on the province's $10-a-day child care program.
And the final number is 37 of 47 local operators intend to opt in, or 79 per cent. The other 10 have declared an intent to opt out.
Of those opting in, 20 are in the not-for-profit sector and 17 are for-profit.
It's a bit more complex when broken down between city and county, as some operators run multiple programs.
In total there are 85 programs operated by those 47 operators.
Overall, 72 of 85 programs have opted in: 48 in Guelph and 24 in the county.
"This has been a big effort of both county staff and child care providers and the province," Mandy Koroniak, the director of children's early years with the County of Wellington, told GuelphToday.
She said a number of local operators have signed agreements with the county, funding is flowing, and families are already seeing rebates.
Operators are required to provide parents with rebates within 20 days of getting their funding allocation.
Parents can expect to see an average of 50 per cent savings by the end of the year.
The province's goal is to reach the $10-a-day average by 2025.
"There is going to be ongoing oversight of the capacity of child care centres (moving forward)," said Koroniak. "There's also the workforce compensation component, which will support many early childhood educators in the system this year and going forward. Those are going to be a lot of ongoing financial administration."
Koroniak said the county has been able to deal with applications on a rolling basis, meeting provincial deadline targets, but anticipates there will be increased pressure on them to review and finalize applications with the deadline passed.
"It's certainly a big administrative change for all of us," she said. "Overall, I think the operators are very excited to be joining the CWELCC (Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care) system, and be able to offer those rebates to families."
