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Licensed child care in Alameda County is both scarce and expensive, according to a report released last week by the California Child Care & Resource Referral Network, a statewide organization that conducts research on child care issues. 

According to the report, the third in a series of biannual statewide studies, the average cost of full-time care for an infant in the county is $9,501, or 19 percent of the median income. The figure rivals housing costs, falling just below the $11,050 fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit in Alameda County. 

The study, based on 2000 figures, also found that child care is available for only 32 percent of the children in the county who may need it, a 7 percent increase since 1998.  

Shelley Waters Boots, research director for the Referral Network, said the modest increase in child care availability, both in the county and statewide, is disappointing given the recent economic boom. 

“Our expectations were that, because of all the increasing demand, child care would grow to reach that demand,” she said. “But, even in the best of times, the market didn’t respond the way normal markets would respond.” 

Waters Boots said high rental costs, for commercial spaces and private homes that host child care, played a role in discouraging growth.  

Judy Kriege, resource referral counselor for Bananas, an Oakland-based group that helps parents in northern Alameda County find childcare, said low salaries also contributed to the problem. 

“Child care doesn’t pay well,” Kriege said, pointing to statistics from the Referral Network report which show that statewide the average salary for a pre-school teacher is $21,130 and the average salary for an assistant is $17,420. Entry-level public school teachers, by contrast, make an average of $25,433. 

Darlene Percoats, executive administrative director of the Child Educational Center, a child care center in Berkeley, said low salaries make it difficult to find qualified staff. But no matter what the pay scale, she said, it is simply difficult to find people with a passion for the work. 

“You can find a body,” Percoats said, “but quality people who are committed to what they’re doing is something else.” 

Beatriz Leyva-Cutler, director of the Bay Area Hispano Institute for Advancement, a 26 year-old child care agency in Berkeley, said it is particularly difficult to find qualified bilingual staff to serve the needs of her clientele. 

But more than anything else Leyva-Cutler said she needs more funding, both to boost salaries and secure more space. “We’d like to serve more children,” she said, noting that she has 60 families on her waiting list, “but we don’t have the facilities.” 

The city of Berkeley spends over $500,000 per year on child care services, and the state has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into early childhood development in California in recent years through Proposition 10, a 1998 voter-approved cigarette tax. 

Alameda County has received about $20 million per year. Over the course of 18 months in 2000-2001, through its Every Child Counts program, the county spent about $5 million on child care, including $4.1 million in stipends for child care workers who have spent at least nine months at a given center. Stipends range from $500 to $5,100, depending on a teacher’s education level. 

Percoats said the stipends have been helpful in retaining staff in the industry. But ultimately, with salaries still low, she said, it is commitment to children that keeps people in the job.