In recent weeks, members of Tallinn's four-party ruling coalition have been working to resolve the issue of the city's monthly kindergarten fees — the Reform Party has consistently pushed for the fees to be eliminated starting this fall, while Eesti 200, Isamaa and the Social Democratic Party (SDE) most recently proposed a compromise to reduce them.

The City of Tallinn last lowered its kindergarten fees in April, cutting them from €71.25 to €50 a month.

Just outside the capital, in Rae Municipality, kindergarten fees went up at the start of the year — from €108 to €132.90 a month. However, according to Deputy Municipal Mayor Bärbel Salumäe (Reform), no discussions have been initiated there about reducing or eliminating the fees.

"Our income tax revenue situation is completely different from Tallinn's," Salumäe acknowledged. "These discussions used to take place at the national level. And Jõelähtme Municipality, for example — which is also led by the Reform Party — implemented a policy some time ago that it doesn't charge kindergarten fees on its own residents' children."

She noted that this isn't the first time the topic has come up, but the current situation is completely different from what it was before. "And right now, we really haven't initiated any such negotiations in Rae Municipality," she confirmed.

The deputy municipal mayor added that currently, the kindergarten fee in their municipality is pegged to the minimum wage.

"By law, a local government has the right to tie [the kindergarten fee] to the minimum wage at a rate of up to 20 percent," she explained. "Ours is 15 percent. The first child pays the full fee, the second child receives a 60 percent discount, and from the third child onward, they attend completely for free."

In Tartu, where Reform Party member Urmas Klaas has been mayor for more than a decade, the city's monthly kindergarten fees won't be changing for now.

"One thing to keep in mind is that nothing is truly free," Klaas said. "If we want our kids to have quality kindergartens, both the city and parents need to invest in them."

The monthly fee in Tartu has been frozen at €81 for the past four years, applying equally to both municipal and private kindergartens. According to Klaas, having the same fee for private and municipal kindergartens has created a fair and effective system in the city.

"There is no kindergarten waitlist; every child has a spot in either a municipal or private kindergarten, and the fee is the same for every family," the mayor explained. "The second child gets a 50-percent discount, and a family's third child is exempt from the fee."

He added that if he were currently working in the Tallinn city government, he would begin by addressing the kindergarten waitlist issue and standardizing fees between private and municipal kindergartens, as has been done in Tartu.

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