Many upset over decision to drop child care discount

[unhappycamper]

Many upset over decision to drop child care discount
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, May 24, 2008

"A slap in the face" is how one Katterbach Child and Youth Services worker described a recent decision to strip on-post child-care workers, whose spouses are deployed, of one of two discounts they had received for care of their own children.

Katterbach CYS workers complained this week about an Installation Management Command-Europe decision that bars them from claiming two discounts on care for their children.

According to IMCOM-E spokesman Ken White, the Department of the Army last July authorized a 20 percent child-care fee reduction per child for families of personnel deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. IMCOM-E also had a standardized staff fee reduction of 20 percent. This year the Army Family Covenant extended the 20 percent fee reduction to all families of deployed personnel, he said.

"So by deduction you can see that some CYS employees had by coincidence benefited from both a ‘deployed status’ reduction and a ‘employee status’ reduction, though that was never the intent," White said.

Katterbach Child Development Center worker Shannon Kinkle said most Katterbach CDC staff received both discounts until March, when they were told they could receive only one discount.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55055