Austin

A Message From Kathy

Welcome to our Spring Newsletter !

Here at MBF, we are always looking for new ways to add value to the services we provide and, as we enter a new season, exciting changes are afoot. For one, in an effort to give you more opportunities to ask questions and get answers on whatever household employment topics are most important to you, we have begun offering two question and answer forums—one for clients and one for nannies—on a quarterly basis. These are designed to be confidential, open forums in which you can learn how to improve or maintain a positive and productive relationship with your nanny, with additional outside opportunities for one-on-one coaching regarding more specific issues.

In addition, we have started offering a service that we believe no other household staffing agency in the country has ever offered before—ongoing monitoring of nannies' and sitters’ background checks. This means that background checks will be rerun through the sitters' entire life of service with our agency and moving forward, their entire tenure with your family if placed permanently.On a regular basis, we will be refreshing background checks on all pertinent records and reporting any relevant results back to you. We are incredibly excited to offer our clients this service since it means an added measure of security, ensuring that, no matter what occurs, you can remain ever confident in the safety of your household when you rely on our agency.

And as we move forward, we are committed to continuing to find new ways to add value to our services for you because, as always, we believe our work on your behalf does not end at placement.

Yours,
Kathy Dupuy, Owner and Founder

Summer is Coming!

Reminders about Agency Fees and Payment
Below is a quick reminder of some of our sitter service policies:

• The date of the charge on your credit/debit card will not coincide with the date of service as we bill after the service is completed.
• A last minute fee of $25 will be charged for jobs with less than 24 hour notice or using the emergency pager.
• When a job has been confirmed and must be cancelled, Mom's Best Friend charges a cancellation fee of $25 (when it is more than 24 hours before the start time) and $40 (when cancelled less than 24 hrs before the start time).

• Friday, March 21st – Austin ISD, Dell Valle ISD, Manor ISD, Lake Travis ISD, Lago Vista ISD, Pflugerville ISD, Round Rock ISD, Dripping Springs ISD
  
• Monday March 24th- Lago Vista ISD
  
• Friday, April 18th- Dripping Springs ISD
  
• Monday, April 21st – Eanes ISD
  
• Monday, April 28th- Lago Vista ISD
• Monday May 5th- Del Valle ISD
  
• Friday, May 23rd- Lake Travis ISD, Pflugerville ISD
  
• Monday, May 26th – Austin ISD, Eanes ISD, Del Valle ISD, Manor ISD, Lago Vista ISD, Pflugerville ISD, Round Rock ISD, Dripping Springs ISD
  
• Friday, May 30th – early release/last day of classes for Eanes ISD, Round Rock ISD
• Tuesday, June 3rd- Last day of classes for Manor ISD
• Wednesday, June 4th – last day of classes for Austin ISD, Del Valle ISD, Lake Travis ISD, Pflugerville ISD,  Dripping Springs ISD
• Thursday, June 5th- Last day of classes for Lago Vista ISD

Mom's Best Friend Gives Back
Child-friendly publication Parent: Wise Austin described the details of the Mom's Best Friend Charity Program.
Parent: Wise Austin, February, 2008

How are Austinites Connecting with each other for child care?
The Austin Business Journal solicited several local families regarding their childcare preferences, and several noted Mom's Best Friend as their nanny / sitter agency choice!
Austin Business Journal, January 25, 2008

It's spring! Now is the perfect time to play with your kids outside! Click here for a great list of suggestions for ways to be active with your children this season.

Q:The nanny I’m about to hire doesn’t have health insurance and would like to have it be a part of her compensation package.  How does that work?

A: Health insurance premiums are a non-taxable form of compensation, meaning neither you nor your nanny would have any taxes on that portion of her compensation.  Therefore, there is a significant financial advantage to both of you if part of your compensation to her goes toward a health insurance premium.

Here’s how the tax math works.  Let’s say you pay your employee $2,000 per month in “straight” (taxable) wages.  Her “take-home pay” after taxes would be roughly $1,700 per month (it may be a few dollars higher or lower depending on her personal tax situation).  If she then buys a health insurance policy and pays $300 per month, her after-tax “disposable” income is $1,400 per month.

Alternatively, if you pay the same $2,000 per month, but it includes the health insurance contribution (i.e. $1,700 in taxable wages plus $300 in health insurance contributions), her after-tax disposable income is $1,475 per month.

So, in this illustration, your nanny sees a real gain of $75 per month (or $900 per year) and your employer taxes are reduced by about $25 per month (or $300 per year) – simply by having healthcare contributions managed through the payroll process. It’s a win-win situation.

If you have any questions about health insurance or how to set it up so you can take advantage of these tax breaks, just give us a call.  As a client of MBF Agency, we’re happy to provide a complimentary phone consultation and guide you through all the financial and legal aspects of being a household employer.

Founded in1992 — by household employers for household employers — Breedlove & Associateshas served more than 10,000 clients and processed more than $1 billion in household payroll.  By focusing on the unique needs of household employers, Breedlove & Associates’ expertise and efficiency has been recognized in The Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger’s, Business Week and SmartMoney.com. For more information or a free phone consultation compliments of MBF Agency, call 1-888-273-3356 or visit www.breedlove-online.com.

A: This a very good question, as I’ve mentioned before in this column as well as in my blog. Since nannies are in your home interacting with your children, it can be very hard to draw lines and set boundaries with them as you might more easily do with another type of employee. This is one key reason why household employment is very different than almost every other type of employment.

I have met household employers who, either because they were new to town or for some other reason, were looking for a new friend as much as they were looking for a new nanny—some of them have even admitted as much.  However, while I think you should try to keep your relationship with your nanny friendly, you will likely run into trouble if you try to actually become her new best friend. This will make things much more difficult if you ever need to confront her for some critical reason—say, for instance, she constantly comes to work late. Interestingly enough, I know of employers who have fired their nannies rather than confront them and try to work out their issues because they had already allowed that important boundary between employer and employee to completely break down. Consequently, they either felt betrayed by someone they had come to see as their friend, or else they could not bear what they saw as an increasingly contentious relationship.

So, with respect to drawing lines, try to start off on a good foot and maintain clear boundaries throughout the course of your relationship. To do this, I suggest, from the very beginning of your nanny’s term of service, you avoid participating in social activities with her outside of work, such as going shopping, sharing clothes, and (especially!) sharing drinks together. Now, I think some activities, such as meals and coffee, can be handled on a case-by-case basis, and I definitely don’t think your time with her must always be confined to the house (I’ll come back to this in a moment), but I do think it’s generally a good rule of thumb to make sure that the time you do spend with your nanny is mostly always, in some way, work-related.

This brings me to the subject of one-on-one meetings. I have written here before that it’s actually a good idea to conduct your monthly one-on-one meetings outside of the house (to avoid everyday distractions and little ears). I think it should also be added that these meetings can really help out with the issue of boundaries by giving both of you a regular opportunity to talk about your issues in an established context in which your respective roles as employer and employee are clearly delineated. Honoring these meetings will help keep boundaries clear in your communication with your nanny and, if you ever find those boundaries eroding, they will give you an opportunity to pull back and reestablish them.

Hope you found this helpful!
Kathy Dupuy, Owner and Founder

Austin Permanent Nanny Martha		Austin Temporary Nanny Tori
Martha has extensive experience as a childcare provider and manager of other providers, and has been in charge of developing educational curriculum and instruction. She was owner and director of Touch of Home Daycare in Buda for over three years, and a teacher and caregiver at Rocking Horse Academy and First Christian Childcare for several years before that. One particular family applauded Martha for her “wonderful talent teaching young children,” and noted that children do not want to leave her care at the end of the day. Martha holds a master’s degree in education, a certificate in early childhood education, and a bachelor’s in business administration. She was placed with an MBF family at the beginning of September and has been a wonderful addition to their family since that time. The family said she does everything and more and have nicknamed her "Supernanny."		Tori is patient, energetic, and fun. Tori brings a wide variety of childcare experience into any assignment. She has worked as a daycare lead teacher, a special needs teaching assistant, an after school teacher, a preschool teacher, and a sitter. “Dependable, patient,” and “resourceful” are some of the words that her former employers have used to describe her. She has worked with special needs children for years and has ample experience with Fragile X syndrome, Down’s syndrome, speech delays, autism, and mental retardation. Tori enjoys playing school, taking trips to the library, and volunteering with her charges. In her spare time, Tori writes children’s stories, dances, acts, and practices photography.

• "I want to thank you so much for all your help, patience and understanding, and all the great jobs which you considered me for. I am very impressed with the way you run your agency and will not hesitate to recommend anyone to you. Your professionalism is beyond comparison and whenever I need to get back on the job market I will contact you. Again thank you and your staff for all the cooperation you gave me."
  --Zoey Samad, Nanny Candidate

• "The main reason I selected your agency was the thoroughness of your screening process for nannies. We knew we would get a high quality nanny, and it was convenient for us."
  --Nicole Dawkins, Nanny Client

• "Thanks again for all your help and the help of the agency! You gals all rock. The agency has always been so professional and helpful."
  --Jennifer Gundersen, Nanny Candidate

Mom's Best Friend Charity Program
Mom's Best Friend continues to donate $25 of every membership fee to local child-related charities. What a wonderful partnership we are making together!