In the fall of 2023 the British Columbia government launched a pilot of a new child care Operating Funding Model (OFM) with a small number of child care programs.
According to the OFM’s 2023 Policies and Procedures Manual, the pilot program “moves BC towards meeting the Province’s commitment to develop and implement a wage grid for Early Childhood Educators and establish a comprehensive compensation standard for all early childhood professionals.” [1]
Specifically, the 2023 OFM Test provides funding for child care educator wages as set out in the following table (which the OFM manual labels a “Wage Grid”).
The Manual then goes into more detail about how this wage funding system works:
“Participants are required to pay any Eligible Employee at least the minimum hourly wage level for their role, as set out in the [table] above. Under the Base Funding, the funding levels provided for hourly wages are higher than the minimum required hourly wages to allow participants some flexibility over how wages are allocated to each of their Eligible Employees. The participant may pay Eligible Employees an hourly wage that exceeds the funding levels in the Wage Grid, provided that neither the Province nor any Parents (whether through the Parent Fee, Optional Parent Fees, or other additional fees) will be required to provide additional funding to the participant to cover those higher wages.”
There are three major issues with this wage funding system:
- It’s not a wage grid
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The wage floor and funding levels are too low
- It pays according to minimum ratio requirements, not actual qualifications
1. It's not a wage grid
The wage funding structure used in the 2023 OFM Test is not a wage grid.
A wage grid, as endorsed by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and Early Childhood Educators of BC, outlines specific wage rates based on qualifications, education, years of experience, and job role.
For example, the April 2024 wage grid used to pay Early Childhood Educators working in health care settings is included below. [2]
In the example wage grid above:
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Wages are firmly set – this creates transparency, equity and predictability; unlike BC’s 2023 OFM Test, which allows every program to set customized wages above the wage floor.
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Wages increase with years of service/experience – unlike BC’s 2023 OFM Test, in which wages may increase with years of service, but the degree to which this happens is up to each program.
- Wages increase with two years of education – from “ECE 1” to “ECE 2” classifications; unlike BC’s 2023 OFM test, which does not distinguish between these two major ECE qualification levels.
In other words, saying BC’s 2023 OFM Test includes a "wage grid" is misleading, as it suggests a more structured system than what's actually in place. To be a genuine and effective wage grid, the following would be needed:
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Set wages: Employees should be able to anticipate their progression through a standardized grid of set wages (instead of each program setting customized wages for everyone).
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Steps: Defined wage increases based on years of experience/service.
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More levels: Including higher set wages for ECEs with 2 or more years of education, and specific levels corresponding to a combination of qualifications held and roles.
The structure in BC’s 2023 OFM Test functions more as a 'wage floor' with a funding buffer. This distinction is not merely semantic but represents a significant difference in approach.
2. The wage floor and funding levels are too low
Soon after the release of BC’s OFM Test, the province was reporting a median ECE wage across the province of $28-$29/hour. [3]
The OFM Test “funding level” of $28.50/hour for ECEs could be interpreted as roughly aligning with this contemporaneous median wage, allowing for participating programs’ customized wages for their more senior ECEs to rise into the low thirties (if other ECEs were paid wages closer to the $25/hour floor wage).
Funding wages near the existing median poses significant challenges, as current wages are demonstrably ineffective, inequitable, and uncompetitive.
We know they are not effective – at encouraging high levels of recruitment and retention – because annual evaluations of BC’s Recruitment and Retention Strategy repeatedly show high levels of dissatisfaction with pay. Even after years of wage top-ups, the most recent such government-funded evaluation found that overall satisfaction with income has decreased since 2019, with only “very modest” progress toward the goal of increased retention. [4]
We know current ECE wages are not equitable, because individual wages continue to vary widely from program to program, and because overall wages are significantly lower than leading wages in BC’s public sector (e.g. as shown in the table above, ECEs in health earn a starting wage of $29/hour, with many of these ECEs also receiving BC’s additional $4/hour Wage Enhancement on top of this base rate). [5]
And we know they are not competitive, because of objective comparisons with a range of benchmarks inside and outside the sector (one example being the median wage earned by BC adults with a similar level of education, which is $2-$3/hour higher than BC’s reported median ECE wage of $28-$29/hour). [6]
3. It pays according to minimum ratio requirements, not actual qualifications
A critical issue with BC’s 2023 OFM is its apparent reliance on roles dictated by minimum licensing requirements to determine wage levels. [7]
For example, if a particular child care program only requires 1 ECE (per minimal licensing standards), but employs two, only one of them gets funded at the higher rate in the OFM Test model, with the other educator being funded at the much lower ECEA rate. This is not equitable and advances a “lowest common denominator” of individual program quality because it (a) creates an incentive for undercompensated educators to leave programs or the sector altogether, (b) leads educators to forego additional education because they see no guaranteed reward, and/or (c) incentivizes administrators to only hire to the minimum level of qualifications under licensing regulations.
Instead, educators’ compensation should increase in set increments corresponding to increasing qualifications held, years of experience, and additional specific job responsibilities, because all three are associated with additional value to individual programs and the sector overall.
In other words, educators’ compensation should increase more like a standard public sector wage grid (see example above), which creates transparent and guaranteed paths to career progression and higher compensation.
Conclusion: BC needs a genuine wage grid, with ECE wages of at least $30-$40/hour
A genuine wage grid is a key building block of a high-quality, universal child care system. [8]
Reflecting this, seven other provinces and territories now have some form of sector-wide ECE wage grid, while BC – still – does not. [9]
When BC does implement a wage grid, its ECE wages need to be at least $30-$40/hour in order to be competitive and equitable. [10]
The current OFM Test funding structure requires employer discretion in setting specific wages. Such a structure may seem attractive in that it provides employers with “flexibility,” but this flexibility is not needed if an ECE wage grid includes (a) levels that correspond to qualifications and managerial/higher responsibility roles; (b) steps that correspond to years of experience; (c) competitive and equitable wage rates throughout; and (d) a green/red-circling policy that allows for higher wages that approach parity over time.
In other words, BC’s ECE/child care wage grid should resemble the multi-level, multi-step grids found in collective agreements for many of BC’s public sector employees. In a phrase: set wages (not set funding with variable wages).
[1] “$10 A Day ChildCareBC Centres Operating Funding Model Test: Phase 1 – 2023 Intake Policy and Procedures Manual,” October 2023, Government of British Columbia. Retrieved from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/family-and-social-supports/child-care/childcarebc-programs/ofm/2023_policy_procedures_manual.pdf (accessed Nov. 26, 2024). Persistent link: https://perma.cc/527F-6KGF
[2] ECEs covered by the Health Sciences Professionals collective agreement; ECE classifications and associated grid levels can be found here.
[3] A median of $28/hour is stated at www2.gov.bc.ca/ gov/content/family-social-supports/caring-for-youngchildren/recruitment-retention-strategy (accessed Nov. 25, 2024). Whereas a median of $29/hour is stated in this August 2024 fact sheet: www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/ family-and-social-supports/child-care/our-plan/9107_ childcarebc_factsheet.pdf (accessed Nov. 25, 2024).
[4] Pg. ES-ix of “Evaluation of Early Care and Learning Recruitment and Retention Strategy: Evaluation Findings Report 2022.”
[5] The receipt of the Wage Enhancement by [many if not all of these] ECEs was confirmed through correspondence with the Health Sciences Association of BC.
[6] Eric Swanson, “Early Childhood Educator Compensation in BC: Spring 2024 Update,” CCCABC and ECEBC, 2024. A more comprehensive analysis of “competitive” wages is forthcoming.
[7] Per conversations with participating programs; we were unable to verify this aspect with publicly-available documents.
[8] Lynell Anderson, Michelle Sing, Rebecca Haber, “Next Step: A Competitive, Publicly Funded Provincial Wage Grid is the Solution to BC’s ECE Shortage,” Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and Early Childhood Educators of BC, 2020.
[9] As of Dec 2024 these include the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
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