Caring About Childcare

Dear Decorah,

(Read to the end for an important announcement about Strong Towns Decorah!)

First I’d like to extend a welcome to many new subscribers this week. I was recently on the Strong Towns podcast, Bottom Up Revolution. I’m glad some Bottom Up listeners have made their way here!

While Decorah is a unique community, a lot of the challenges we face are not unique. I bet we all have a lot to learn from each other.

Talking About Childcare

One issue many communities face is the lack of affordable, quality, childcare. Decorah is no exception. Local governments are not going to fix the systemic childcare issues prevalent in much of the United States. But cities and counties can take meaningful actions to improve the situation. Today I’ll discuss the nature of the challenges facing Decorah, and share a little about the work that has already been done. I’ll conclude with some meaningful steps local communities can take to better address childcare access and affordability issues.

As is true in many places, it can be hard for Decorah families to find childcare. Over the past few months I’ve been part of some childcare-focused conversations led by Michelle Barness, a researcher at the local Regional Planning Commission.

One surprising takeaway was that, compared to the childcare situation in many peer communities, Decorah is doing fairly well. While there is not enough childcare available locally to meet the need families identify, availability is still far better than in many rural Midwest communities of our size. And costs for childcare - while stretching the budgets of many households - are lower here than they are in many other contexts.

How We Got Here

Five years ago the City government identified the lack of childcare as one of our most important challenges to address. Costs to families were enormous. Some parents drove as far as 30 miles each way twice daily for childcare. Others had to do without childcare they wanted. Local employers reported they were losing good candidates who wanted to move to Decorah but couldn’t find adequate care for their children.

To partially address this need, our economic development partner, led by the capable Stephanie Fromm, rallied community members, area businesses, and local governments together to raise more than ten million dollars for a major new facility to house Sunflower Child Development and Discovery Center. The project added more than 100 childcare spaces — a massive increase in local capacity. Unfortunately, several local in-home providers chose to retire around this same time, somewhat mitigating the impact of the new center.

Still, the improvement has been noticeable. Many families now have an easier time finding childcare. Each additional space made available means another local family can make the choice they think is best for them.

But things aren’t perfect. It is still difficult for many area residents to find childcare. This is particularly true for families looking for infant care or for care during non-business hours. And families fortunate enough to secure spots are often financially stretched by the tuition.

On the other side of the ledger, childcare centers are squeezed hard by budget realities, extensive regulations, and a dwindling labor pool of interested and skilled care providers.

I’ve experienced this firsthand. For several years I served on the Board at Kinderhaus, the Waldorf-inspired neighborhood preschool my children attended. The Board constantly struggled to balance the demands of running the program, fairly compensating our workers, and providing care that families we served could afford. We turned to fundraising and grants to close the gap between what families could pay and what it cost to run the program. But the challenges were relentless and oppressive.

“Kinderhaus” is German for “Your Children Come Home Muddy”

Many regional child care providers have been unable to meet these challenges. Over the past year more than half of Iowa childcare businesses have closed their doors! And current in-home providers are leaving the field far faster than new providers enter.

From Iowa Women’s Foundation.

So where do things stand today? I think that the massive community investment in Sunflower Discovery Center was a game changer, but it wasn’t a game-winner. And while Decorah is faring better than many peer communities with regard to childcare, the structural challenges remain significant.

The Crux of the Problem

To strip away a lot of complexity, childcare was historically more “affordable” mostly because it relied on underpaid providers and a much more lax regulatory environment. And while the market now values childcare workers more than it used to, it is still an industry with many, many workers who are not paid enough to make ends meet. Wages vary quite a bit, even locally. But 30% of Iowa childcare workers rely on Medicaid. Prevailing provider wages are often simply not high enough to make ends meet.

So there is a growing mismatch between what many families can afford to pay and what childcare workers need. And other factors make things worse. Well-intentioned but extensive regulations add all sorts of hidden costs to running a licensed childcare center in Iowa. And many non-labor costs for childcare centers have risen faster than inflation.

What Should Local Governments Do?

Many of these issues are reflective of huge structural changes that are not really going to be meaningfully addressed by local governments. But there is plenty that we can do locally to positively impact the situation for the communities we serves

1. Build Better Neighborhoods - I don’t think it’s a coincidence that childcare has gotten less accessible and more expensive as the American Suburban Experiment has proliferated. When almost every trip requires getting in a car and paying for parking at both sides (usually via higher prices and housing costs), everything gets more expensive, including childcare. People could afford to pay more for childcare that they could easily walk or bike to. And childcare centers could charge lower fees if they didn’t need to abide by bad land use decisions and insensible parking mandates. Cities should urgently identify obstacles to childcare friendly neighborhoods and eliminate them.

2. Think Small - Big, splashy childcare projects (like the new ten million dollar Sunflower facility) certainly make an impact. But sustainable solutions to the childcare crisis must not solely depend on massive projects requiring outside grants and millions of dollars from local governments and benefactors. The “once-and-for-all” fix is tempting, but it is not financially sustainable. Lasting change is cultural and bottom-up, not centrally-planned and top-down.

3. Take Care of What You Have - It is far easier and more cost-effective to preserve existing childcare spots than to create new ones. Governmental and quasi-governmental organizations will get the best value from supporting existing childcare providers with things like marketing, long-term planning, operator-transition assistance, and help securing appropriate facilities.

4. Shrink the Money Gap - Some communities invest directly in subsidizing wages for childcare providers. A neighboring county has developed a “Childcare Provider Wage Enhancement Program.” Another local county offered a “bounty” program, providing $5,000 to $10,000 dollars for every new childcare slot local providers created and maintained for two years. I’m paying close attention to how well these programs achieve their goals.

5. Regulate the Regulations - So many well-meaning but unjustifiable regulations hinder the ability of providers to keep rates affordable. Local governments, and especially state governments, need to carefully scrutinize every regulation that makes childcare more expensive according to two criteria: First - does this requirement actually lead to better outcomes for children and society? Second - do the better outcomes justify the increased costs and burdens? I mentioned a few examples of obviously stupid regulatory burdens above (like the profoundly ridiculous requirements that childcare centers spend money on huge parking lots when most of their customers are not of driving age). But even many well-meaning rules create tremendous unneeded costs for centers. For example, at Kinderhaus we had to pour a $7,000 sidewalk to connect our indoor facility with our outdoor classroom. Sidewalks are often one of the best investments places can make for connectivity and access for all users. But the only purpose of this sidewalk is that children don’t have walk in the grass until they are slightly farther away from the building. I could provide ten more examples just like this. Cutting ribbons on huge new projects can be rewarding and important, but it’s important for states and local governments to also focus on cutting red tape.

   

6. Center the Children - As a good rule, communities should to do what they can to encourage and accommodate families raising children. We need good pools, playgrounds and libraries. We need low crime rates, strong schools, safe bike paths, connected sidewalks, and family-friendly events. While these things don’t directly reduce the costs of childcare, they work together to create an important incentive for families that helps offset their childcare investments. And when they do, everybody benefits. Who doesn’t like safe streets and great parks? Places that are good for children are good for everyone!

A Few Closing Thoughts

Childcare isn’t quite like other services communities rely on. It’s mostly privately-operated, to start with. And it’s less visible than much of the other “infrastructure” that makes society function. But it would be foolish and short-sided for Decorah to ignore the unique and pressing demands on families and childcare providers.

Readers familiar with Strong Towns will recognize many commonalities between these issues and other issues facing local governments. The same temptations exist to try to “fix” the problem with massive, debt-financed solutions ridden with huge, rarely-accounted-for maintenance obligations. But the best and most lasting solutions are incremental and bottom-up.

To the extent local government has a role to play with regard to the childcare crisis, these are the kinds of solutions I will be focusing on going forward. And I hope you consider joining me in this vital work on behalf of everyone in our community.

-sz

Postscripts

• Inaugural Strong Towns Conversation this Thursday - If you enjoy learning more about these issues or would like to join a group of well-meaning citizens advocating for a stronger future for Decorah - please consider joining us Thursday at 5:15 p.m. at the Landing Market on College Drive. Strong Towns Decorah will have its work shaped by the people who show up to these initial meetings. This is an exciting chance to be part of making a lasting difference in your community!

• Whether you can make it or not, join the Strong Towns Decorah email list by sending a message to strongdecorah@gmail.com. I’ll only use the email list to announce upcoming meetings and identify occasional advocacy opportunities.

• Our Council meeting Monday has a busy agenda. The budget is the big item of business, the budget we will (probably) adopt is our spending plan for the fiscal year between this summer and next summer. It includes a few big projects, like a new athletic complex, upgraded water meters, and things related to the Heivly Road reconstruction. Lots of exciting fodder for future installments of Dear Decorah.

If you appreciate Dear Decorah, please share this post with someone else who might like to read it. Dear Decorah intends to remain free. But if you really want to spend money, Invest in our Parks, Feed Local Neighbors, or support the World’s Most Effective Charities.)