Amid ongoing staffing shortages at Defense Department day cares and long waits for military families to get a spot at the facilities, a bipartisan pair of senators who lead oversight of Pentagon personnel policies is pushing the department to quickly increase child care workers' pay.
While Defense Department officials have identified the need to boost pay for child care workers, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., are urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to "implement the revised pay scale as quickly as possible."
"Congress and military families are counting on DoD to update its compensation model for direct care staff expeditiously so DoD can hire and retain more caregivers, and more military families can find the care they need," the senators wrote in a letter to Austin dated Thursday that was obtained exclusively by Military.com ahead of its release.
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Warren chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee's personnel subcommittee, while Scott serves as its top Republican.
A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the senators' letter, telling Military.com in an email that, "as with all congressional correspondences, the department will respond directly to the authors."
But the Defense Department on Friday released a plan to make quality-of-life improvements across the military that calls for higher salaries for managers and supervisors at child care centers to help increase retention.
The Pentagon suggested part of the burden is on Congress, with a news release on the quality-of-life plan saying that the department is "working closely with Congress to fund compensation increases for child care providers and to add key positions -- lead educators and special needs inclusion coordinators- -- that will enhance the developmental and educational support provided to children served by DoD child development centers."
Lawmakers in both parties have expressed concern in recent years about military families struggling to access affordable child care because of monthslong waitlists for on-base day care centers.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan House panel that spent months studying military quality-of-life issues concluded that child care staff are leaving because of low pay and recommended that Congress amend the law to ensure employees at military child care centers get "rates of pay competitive with market rates."
Last year, a Pentagon task force conducted its own study of recruitment, retention and compensation for child care workers that found the department's "direct care staff pay is at the bottom of federal pay," according to a copy of the task force report obtained by Military.com.
"The current DoD [child development program] staffing and compensation model framework was built 30 years ago," the report said. "Considered a national model at the time, components of the model have not kept pace with the evolution of the child development field, increases in child care demand, and the challenges of a competitive labor market."
Meanwhile, a Government Accountability Office report released this year found child care staff turnover rates ranged from 34% to 50% in 2022, depending on the military service. The Child Care and Early Education Policy and Research Analysis project, run by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, considers a turnover rate of 20% to be high, the GAO noted.
Citing the internal Pentagon task force and GAO findings, Warren and Scott pressed Austin for an answer on when a new pay scale will be implemented.
The pair also asked Austin for details on how the department will pay for an increase in child care salaries, whether local commanders will have the power to opt out of providing a pay raise, and how the department will measure improvements in retention and recruitment of child care workers, among other questions. The senators requested answers by Oct. 3.
"The Department of Defense's affordable, high-quality child care program is critical to military readiness by allowing service members to show up to work knowing their children are safe and well cared for," Warren said in an emailed statement to Military.com. "Low pay for child care workers threatens this program. I'm pushing for DoD to improve its staffing capacity and pay workers a fair wage to ensure that more military families have access to this top-notch care."
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