After managing Sun Peaks Community Daycare since November 2023, Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality (SPMRM) is working to transfer daycare operations to a third party.
Daycares are not typically the business of a municipality, said Deanna Campbell, chief administrative officer for SPMRM. She spoke on behalf of council at their regular meeting on June 18, as well as to SPIN directly on the topic of this transition.
Reasons for a switch in operations
Beyond lacking the expertise that a specialist in childcare could offer, Campbell also said council’s focus is on traditional municipal services such as wastewater capacities, roads and property taxes.
“I think that the daycare and the daycare staff will benefit from increased support and a dedicated childcare provider and operator,” she said.
At the latest regular council meeting, a concerned parent shared some concerns felt by themselves and other parents in the community, starting with a statement of how life changing the Sun Peaks Daycare has been for them.
This individual asked why the decision wasn’t made eight months ago at the daycare’s launch, and Campbell explained that the priority of SPMRM was getting the daycare open, and the plan was always to switch to a third party operator.
“The majority of daycares in B.C. are operated by third party qualified daycare providers that have that industry expertise and insight into running a daycare,” Campbell told SPIN.
Some other concerns revolved around implications the switch could have, especially on staff and their benefits. Though Campbell stated negotiations with a third party operator once they reach that stage of the process will be confidential, the municipality is committed to being open and transparent on everything they can be.
“A question and answer document was actually sent out to parents yesterday,” she said. “When we get further along in the process, we will have a town hall type of meeting.”
Part of the criteria SPMRM have stated in their expression of interest going out to potential service providers is retaining staff and negotiating their benefits.
The process of transitioning
As of now, the municipality has hired a daycare consultant who is assisting them in writing their expression of interest, which Campbell said will be circulated to non-profit and for-profit daycare providers in the region.
The expression of interest goes out in July, with proposals from eligible providers set to be evaluated in August.
“The purpose of an expression of interest process is to allow us to establish criteria that we’ll be able to measure the proposals against,” she said. This determines they have the financial capacity, knowledge and experience to run the daycare and will agree to the terms set by SPMRM.
The expression of interest states that they’re seeking a third party to operate their licensed daycare, outlining the capacity, number of children and age group, and includes expectations for applicants.
“We’ve built in quite a quite a bit of safeguards to ensure that we’re getting the right provider,” she said, explaining that the provider is required to provide a licensing transition plan for evaluation, as well as a staffing plan and a recruitment plan to ensure they’re well positioned to to continue to recruit for Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) to work at the daycare.
“Should we select someone that we feel meets the criteria, then negotiations would take place probably late August [or] September,” she said. “A transition plan would be developed in consultation with that successful provider with an expectation that the full transition of operations would take place later in the fall.”
The contract post negotiations will include penalties for not fulfilling the operational requirements.
Campbell said they expect that those applying to the expression of interest may be operating one or more daycare facilities elsewhere.
“That would mean that maybe they would be able to provide backup staff from other centers in the event of shortages, or they would have connections with ECE [Early Childhood Education] training facilities and other streams of ECEs who might be relocating to B.C. from both other provinces or abroad,” she said.
The municipality’s role
The municipality will still have quite a bit of involvement in Sun Peaks Community Daycare operations.
Besides overseeing the service contract, Campbell said they’d also be providing a financial commitment.
“We’re willing to subsidize the daycare,” she said. “So we would provide the daycare facility to the successful provider, rent or lease free, which is significant for any daycare provider. We would look at providing other subsidies such as yearly grants, and things like that.”
For any questions from parents, she said she urges them to contact her at cao@sunpeaksmunicipality.ca.
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