Question

Suppose that Whispering Daycare provides two different services: full-time childcare for preschoolers, and after-school care for older children. The director would like to estimate an annual cost per child in each of the daycare programs, ignoring any facility-sustaining costs. She is considering expanding the services and wants to know whether full-time or after-school care is more profitable.

The following activities and annual costs apply to the daycare centre. Salaries and wages are $100,000. Full-time children arrive between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. Older children arrive about 3:00 p.m. All the children are gone by 6:00 p.m. Employees estimate that they spend about 25% of their time on meal-related activities, 25% supervising naps or recreation, 12% in greeting children or sending them home, and the rest of the time presenting educational experiences to the children. Meals and snacks cost about $24,000. Preschoolers receive 3 snacks and 1 meal per day, and the older children receive 1 snack per day. On average, snacks and meals do not differ in cost. Supplies cost $8,000 for the full-time childcare program and $6,000 for the after-school program.

Currently, 25 children participate in full-time care and 10 children in after-school care. Because Whispering Daycare maintains a waiting list for openings in its programs, the number of children in each program remains steady.

(b) Assuming 200 days of daycare for a year, estimate the annual cost per child in each program. (Round answers to 0 decimal places, e.g. 5,275.)

Answer 1

Particulars		Denominator	Full Time	After School	Total
No of students	[A]		25	10	35
No of meals/student	[B]		4	1
Weighted Average	[C] = [A]*[B]		100	10	110
Salaries & Wages	100,000
1) Meal related activities @25%	25,000	/[C]	22,727	2,273
2) Supervising naps @25%	25,000	/[A]	17,857	7,143
3) Greeting children @12%	12,000	/[A]	8,571	3,429
4) Others	38,000	/[A]	27,143	10,857
Meals & Snacks	24,000	/[C]	21,818	2,182
Supplies			8,000	6,000
Total Cost			106,116	31,884
Annual Cost per child		/[A]	4,245	3,188

Based on the table above it looks like the after school program is more lucrative