Lisa Zarodney has spent 25 years caring for children in her single-story home in Livermore.
There’s no sign on the front door or even a name for her business. Her work is hidden from view. But inside, she’s juggling a lot.
On a recent visit, Zarodney rocked a 3-month-old girl in her arms while three toddlers stacked blocks on her living room floor. They had just finished eating the lunch she made in her kitchen and were squeezing in a bit of play time before taking their naps.
“The work is never easy, but it’s what I love to do,” she said.
She estimates that she has cared for hundreds of kids.
But earlier this year, she thought she would have to shutter her business.
Zarodney had racked up $50,000 in credit card debt to get through the pandemic and its aftermath. Parents working from home kept their kids at home too, or opted for California’s expanding transitional kindergarten program. At one point, only two kids were coming to her house full-time, even though she could handle up to eight. With the program underenrolled, Zarodney earned less but still had to cover food, rent, insurance and other expenses.
She was also diagnosed with cervical cancer, which led to thousands of dollars in medical bills.
“I was freaking out, I didn’t see (my debt) going down because interest rates don’t go down unless you pay it off,” she said, “You take one shovel out and two go in, and you just bury yourself.”
Then came relief.
Last month, she received a $40,000 check. The money came from Measure C, a half-cent sales tax to increase access to child care throughout Alameda County. After a yearslong holdup, funds from the measure are flowing to providers like Zarodney, helping them get back on track financially so they don’t close or leave for better-paying jobs.
“Finally, something went right after everything that I went through,” Zarodney said. “It was finally going to be OK.”
In the Bay Area, where child care costs are among the highest in the nation, Alameda County is the latest to distribute dedicated tax revenue to caregivers and the families who rely on them.
San Francisco is offering families free or subsidized child care, adding more child-care space and paying early educators a living wage, using funds from a commercial property tax. Last month, Sonoma County released the first batch of funds from a half-cent sales tax to offer grants to early educators and improve early learning facilities.
The local tax measures come as California’s tobacco tax, which has long funded early childhood services, dwindles and federal programs like Head Start face an uncertain future.
The success of Alameda, San Francisco and Sonoma counties is the envy of advocates around the Bay who are looking for local solutions to make child care more affordable for families struggling with the high cost of living.
“I think it’s the only way we’re gonna be able to address it,” said Marin County Supervisor Eric Lucan, who wants to place a child care funding tax on next year’s ballot.
A similar effort failed in 2016, but Lucan thinks the issue is gaining political support now that the cost of infant care in Marin has risen to $32,000 per year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices.
The federal government considers child care affordable when it costs no more than 7% of a family’s annual income. That means a family must earn $400,000 a year to afford infant care in Marin County.
“It’s not just very low-income families, we’re talking working families making good salaries that are [struggling],” Lucan said. “And when you throw in housing costs with child care costs and energy costs and everything, it’s becoming very, very unaffordable for families of young children.”
Lucan said he and his wife paid about $2,000 per month in child care for each of their two kids, and whenever he mentions the figure in conversations, “it’s pretty mind-blowing for a lot of folks.”
Parents who can’t afford those high monthly costs make other difficult tradeoffs.
At a town hall meeting in East Palo Alto, a college student described taking two-hourlong bus rides to drop off her toddler with her sister because she couldn’t find affordable child care closer to home.
San Mateo County supervisors Jackie Speier and Lisa Gauthier have held three of the meetings to hear from families and child care workers.
Speier and Gauthier said they’re both grandmothers whose adult children are grappling with the shortage of reliable, affordable child care. They’re worried that high child care prices are driving down the birth rate, pushing young families out of the county and harming the local economy. Speier is particularly struck by a countywide survey that found more than 45% of parents left the workforce to care for their children.
“I really think it’s a crisis that we have ignored, and we can’t do that anymore, not for the health of our communities,” she said.
Speier said she would like to place a half-cent sales tax measure to fund child care on the November 2026 ballot, but worries about competing with a potential sales tax measure to fund the Bay Area’s crippling transit systems.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to approve placing the measure on the ballot.
Speier said if that happens, she will seek an alternative solution, such as tapping into funds from a previously approved half-cent sales tax and fees from car rentals at San Francisco International Airport. She also wants to introduce “Tri-Share,” in which workers, their employers, and government split the cost of child care. The concept was first launched in Michigan in 2021 to help families afford child care and businesses recruit and retain workers.
“I think I can convince some employers to recognize that this is the way to go,” Speier said. “And it’s a benefit that they can also deduct on their business taxes. I mean, it’s not like it’s a heavy lift.”
She wishes San Mateo County could boldly replicate New Mexico, which is about to offer free child care to all parents, using profits from oil and gas production.
Meanwhile, Alameda County officials approved a plan to spend roughly $1 billion generated from Measure C in the last four years. A five-year spending plan calls for boosting early educators’ wages to at least $25 per hour, subsidizing 2,400 child care slots and offering monthly stipends to an often overlooked group known as license-exempt Family, Friends and Neighbors who receive subsidies for their caregiving.
Quinetta Lewis is the director of St. Mary’s Center in West Oakland, which received a $50,000 emergency grant from the county. She gave her teachers $1,000 stipends and plans to hire a substitute so they can plan their lessons and undergo training for their professional development.
Although St. Mary’s pays teachers between $25 and $32 per hour, Lewis said the preschool has a hard time retaining new hires.
“People find that this job is too hard or too taxing, so they choose a different field to be in,” she said.
Lisa Zarodney said the grant she received will help her pay down her debt to a manageable level.
“People keep saying ‘you must have a lot of money because you run a day care.’ And I’m like, no, you really don’t. I never pay myself,” she said. “Everything I make goes back into the day care, every single thing.”
Soon, she will be at capacity once again, as she starts caring for the babies of two teachers who are heading back to the classroom. She’s also in remission after undergoing cancer surgery.
“So it just makes me feel like I’m going to make it,” she said.
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