Kindergartens New Zealand says its members will struggle after the Budget increased their operational subsidy by less than 0.5%.
The government increased other early childhood education services' subsidies by 1.5%, but said kindergartens would get just 0.48% because they received additional funding for staffing costs under the kindergarten teachers' collective agreement.
Kindergartens New Zealand chief executive Jill Bond said kindergartens spent about 88% of its funding on teacher salaries and on average a "high 70% of that" was covered by Ministry of Education funding.
She said because the cost of teachers' pay was not fully funded by the government, kindergartens were "always behind the eight-ball".
"It's a drop in the bucket because costs are significantly greater than 0.45% [sic]," she said.
Bond said most member associations charged no or notional fees, and to continue doing that they would have to cut costs.
"Things like long-term maintenance of our assets won't be addressed. It means that we will probably have to ask for family donations of goods like . . . kitchen supplies, art supplies, those sorts of things."
Bond said the ongoing underfunding would erode kindergartens' cash reserves and hamper their ability to do new and innovative things.
She said the government needed to value qualified teachers because they made a massive impact on the lives of tamariki.
