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The first application period for the 2004 child care subsidy grant program is scheduled for July 14 to Aug. 15, 2003, Teresa Rasco, director of the WorkLife Office, has announced. All employees who previously have received grants should apply for renewals during this period; first-time applicants, new employees hired by Aug. 8, 2003, and employees with new child dependents added by Aug. 8, 2003, apply during this period. Grant applications have been mailed to employees' home addresses and are available in English and Spanish on the WorkLife Office website at http://worklife.stanford.edu and at their offices in Building 310. The two-year-old program awards grants that reimburse eligible employees for qualified child care costs in amounts of up to $5,000 per family, based on factors including number and ages of children in a family, employment status of parents and adjusted gross family income. The program limits eligibility to parents whose adjusted gross family income does not exceed $124,999. The Aug. 15 deadline is a critical one because, although the WorkLife Office holds three application periods annually, employees are eligible to apply for the grants only during the application period in which they first become eligible each year, Rasco said. Additional application periods are designed to allow new employees and employees with new child dependents to take advantage of the benefit, she said. This year, the program will award more than $1 million toward the costs of child care to 466 eligible faculty and staff. Approximately 36 percent of faculty and staff known to be eligible for the program have used it in 2003, Rasco said. Participation in the program, which awarded 218 grants during a pilot year in 2002, more than doubled in 2003, she said. Changes made to the program last year, including adjustments to income ranges and the expansion of the program to include child care for children aged 6 to 9, were partly responsible for the gain, Rasco said. (The program's 2003 guidelines will not change for 2004.) The WorkLife Office is intensively marketing the program to ensure that every employee who could benefit from the program knows that it exists and how to use it, Rasco said. Her office has scheduled a series of sessions around campus during the application period to provide information about the program, including sessions that will be conducted in both Spanish and English. The office also has added a telephone information line that will be responded to in Spanish, 724-0625. Information in English is available at 723-2660. Scheduled information sessions include:
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Stanford Report, July 9, 2003
