The state Department of Education is seeking a multiyear price hike to its after-school program that would increase the monthly rate families pay to $120 from $85 over three years, resulting in a more than 40 percent increase by 2018.

The After-School Plus, or A+, Program, established in 1990, provides after-school activities for roughly 20,000 public elementary school children a year at 180 school sites, where students are given time to complete homework and can participate in activities such as arts and crafts, drama, dance, sports and games. The program runs on regular school days from after school until 5:30 p.m. and has a stated goal of reducing the high incidence of latchkey kids in the state.

The DOE says the extra revenue is needed to cover rising costs — most notably increases to the state’s minimum wage — and keep the program self-sustaining, even as enrollment has dropped off in recent years. Hawaii’s minimum wage went up to $7.75 per hour at the start of this year and will increase annually to $10.10 an hour by Jan. 1, 2018.

“The recommendation takes into account rising operational program costs as well as the fiscal impact of the upcoming minimum wage increases slated for upward adjustments annually each Jan. 1 over the next three years,” schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi wrote in a memo this week to the Board of Education’s Finance and Infrastructure Committee. “A fee increase will allow the DOE to provide after-school options for families with latchkey children without general fund appropriations” from the state.

Under the proposal — which is scheduled to go before the BOE on Tuesday — the monthly rate would increase to $100 beginning July 1, $110 in July 2017 and $120 the following July. Subsidies to offset the costs are available for qualifying families though the state Department of Human Services.

While the DOE acknowledges the increases will create financial challenges for some families, it says by seeking the increases now, families will have time to plan ahead. Nationally, according to a 2014 report by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Afterschool Alliance, parents who pay for after-school programs report spending an average of $113.50 per week on such programs.

The state program, which the DOE says has not received general fund support since 2010, collects roughly $7 million a year in enrollment revenues, while expenditures are estimated to increase to $8.6 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and to $9 million the following year. (The DOE operates 50 of the A+ sites, while private providers run the others and directly collect those enrollment fees.)

Without the proposed increases, the DOE estimates, the program will run a nearly $377,000 operating deficit in mid-2017 and be $2.3 million in the red by the end of the following fiscal year. But even with the proposed increases, program costs are again projected to exceed revenues in future years. Matayoshi is recommending the program’s budget be revisited in fiscal 2018 “to determine whether an additional fee increase is necessary.”

The BOE in 2011 established the existing $85 flat monthly fee to reflect the actual cost to run a self-sustaining program at the time. Previously, families paid $55 monthly for the first child in a family, with a sliding scale for siblings.

Matayoshi said the department anticipates enrollment will decrease if the fee increase takes effect. The A+ program has seen drops in enrollment over the last six years, including a 4 percent decline last school year to 19,646 participating students. Some of the annual dips are attributed to other, less direct factors, including Furlough Fridays, the recession and a higher age requirement for kindergarten.