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Supporting Child Care Essential To Rural Growth

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These are challenging days for communities to provide adequate and affordable child care for families. Costs are rising both for providers and families. Government rules and regulations can be burdensome and costly.
Then there is social media. A parent sees something he or she doesn’t like, and it is immediately posted all over social media with others who know nothing of the situation, joining in and ripping apart staff and facilities.
Sometimes, their observations warrant attention and action. But other times, they are overblown. Situations that could be talked over with staff and administration, or the home child care provider are instead heatedly posted to social media. These online comments make it harder to find employees and can result in parents not having child care providers.
What we do know is that child care is an essential service for a community that wants to grow. It is an absolute necessity and civic responsibility if we want to see families settle down in our communities and if we want our businesses and industries to stay here and expand.
We know that when families can’t find child care locally, they look elsewhere. When they take their child to another community, they may look for a job in that town to be close to their child if they need to be there quickly.
When another child is born, that child too will eventually be taken to the out-of-town child care provider. With one child in a day care, the older one may now be ready to attend school. Guess what school district the child is likely to attend? The one close to where the child care provider is located.
With each child lost from our local school district, thousands in state aid dollars are lost. If we lose seven or eight kids to out-of-area schools, it could mean the loss of a teaching position.
Eventually, it could mean they move away with the community losing not just the children for their schools and employees for their businesses.
It means we lose people who are potential members of the committees and social groups that help energize change that makes our communities more vibrant and successful. It means there are fewer people to seek public office. Our school sports teams lose participants, as do our high school choirs and bands.
Among those employers are our local healthcare providers. They constantly look for new nurses, doctors, nurse practitioners, and other staff. A community with great childcare program support has a distinct advantage in recruiting them, benefiting all of us.
When child care costs become unaffordable, it takes a parent out of the workforce. There can be additional costs to the taxpayer when this happens. With two parents working, the family may be able to afford to pay its own way. But with one working, that family may need to turn to public assistance services. Single mothers are put in an even more stressful position.
“Childcare is not just a family problem, it’s an economic development goal, as much as attracting people to communities is today and attracting jobs used to be,” Vice President of Research at the Center for Rural Policy & Development Marnie Werner writes. At the same time, it is recognized that the business model for child care does not work and no one-size-fits-all solution is going to work, she says.
Her comments were made in October 2022 when the Center released its “Rural Child Care Solutions: From the Ground Up,” report. It recognized that communities didn’t have time to wait for state or federal officials to arrive with help.
Recognizing the essential value of child care, one county in Texas is proposing to raise its property tax levy by 2.5 cents per $100 valuation to raise funds to support child care, an article in The Wall Street Journal says.
“Vermont created a new payroll tax, to increase staffing and capacity at daycares. And in Louisiana, taxes on sports betting, cannabis-derived products and casinos raise money for early childhood education,” the Journal article says. “Florida this year started offering tax breaks to businesses that provide child care for employees.”
When the business model doesn’t work and the need is essential to a family’s well-being, a community’s economic health and future, and a school district’s financial stability, the solutions are limited. They involve citizen support through our local units of government and help from the businesses that need the employees.
“Pods, a subset of the family childcare license, is gaining interest,” Werner writes. “A childcare pod license allows family providers to have their childcare businesses outside of their homes, but they are still only subject to family childcare regulations, not center regulations, which are quite different.
In addition, providers can share a building, which means sharing the costs of overhead, if they keep their businesses separate.
In Morris in Stevens County, a six-pod system was created with individualized but adjacent child care pods that are leased out to private providers. The county owns the pods.
Financial support was also given to the Morris Area Child Care Center and private providers.
In 2018, the voters of Benson’s school district overwhelmingly passed a $26.3 million building bond levy that included six rooms for child care and early childhood education.
Swift County offers $10,00 annually to its two child care centers, while private providers get a maximum of $2,500.
Currently, Grant County relies on private child care providers and does not subsidize their costs.
A readily available and comprehensive child care program lined up with the hours of the area’s employers is an economic development selling point for prospective employees and new businesses considering where to locate. It can become a featured selling point for the community Werner says.
What motivates young families to come to a community for a job? What encourages them to settle down and raise their family here? A good job is important. Affordable housing is essential. But another fundamental key is affordable child care.

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