Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Hiring babysitters?

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

On Nov 21, 2017, at 11:08 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:

> All the communities I have lived in (Doyle Street and Nevada City Cohousing), 
> as well as communities I've worked with, have budgeted for childcare during 
> meetings. 

At RoseWind, in Port Townsend WA, we also want parents to be free to come to 
meetings, and want to provide childcare. The big question here is whether it is 
too complicated to include childcare funding in our annual budget as a 
line-item expense. The advantage is philosophical: a clear indication that this 
is a community value, shared by everyone. The down side is the legal aspect of 
the community thus being an Employer. Years ago we learned the hard way that 
hiring someone (for a construction odd job) directly, without all the paperwork 
of tax withholding, workers' compensation insurance payment, etc. could, in the 
event of even a minor accident, be very costly. Since then we have done the 
whole paperwork thing on those few we hire to do landscape or housekeeping work 
for the community.  

With a babysitter, we'd need to do that for each person we paid for childcare, 
and couldn't even legally hire anyone under 16. We have no obvious candidates 
for regular childcare work (except for a gal who is under 16). In addition, 
liability questions have been raised. If while in care a child were to be 
injured, due to a potential claim of negligence, would the whole community be 
legally liable?

This is currently referred to our insurance company, on the liability issue. 
That still would leave the question of legal paperwork.

 It's also becoming apparent that we may also come to needing to reimburse 
caregiving for adult dependents, to allow members to attend meetings.

The easy dodge is to collect donations, hold them in a personal account, from 
which to reimburse for caregivers. But some folks want the "value" aspect of 
funding from the annual assessment.

Have others dealt with such concerns as liability and legal Employer paperwork?

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau