A proposal to use COVID federal stimulus dollars to address child care needs saw resistance during a work session held by the Washington County Board of Supervisors this week.
The supervisors reviewed proposals for American Rescue Plan Act funds that were ranked by a committee including Supervisors Stan Stoops and Marcus Fedler and county department heads. While there were 23 items listed, the supervisors and department heads argued that several of them essentially addressed the same issue of building or relocating county offices including public health and solving current building issues like HVAC and telephones. One proposal that ranked near the middle was using funds to help start a childcare center or help current providers expand their businesses.
Washington Economic Development Group Executive Director Mary Audia shared that a child care-workforce study WEDG commissioned last year from First Children’s Finance found there is a shortage of about 844 child care slots in the county. Audia explained that in turn means one parent is having to leave the workforce to stay home with their children. Supervisor Jack Seward, Jr. said that he is leery of the government getting involved in large child care facilities, “It used to be, a lot of times, there was in-home babysitting and you said there’s a lot of cases where parents, one of them has to stay home and babysit. Wouldn’t that be a perfect opportunity to get a little extra money by getting two or three other kids in to babysit with your own? So you’re getting some money, you’re not out of the workforce, you’re creating the workforce.”
The study showed that the most preferred childcare setting of the parents who completed the survey was a Department of Human Services-licensed center for all ages. The study also showed that only 36% of current parents indicated in a survey that their children are in their preferred child care, and 81% of parents with children aged 0 to 5 find it somewhat-to-very difficult to find child care.
Miscellaneous comments that were included with the committee’s project ranking suggested using 40% of the approximate $4.3 million of allocated funds for the creation of a countywide campus on Lexington Boulevard to include public health, 10% to rehabilitate the courthouse, 15% each to the county engineer and county conservation for needed projects, 10% for technology needs such as digitizing county records, and 10% to be determined later. Another idea suggested is assisting the Highland School District with their wastewater project, which Seward stated is worth consideration as it is infrastructure. No immediate direction was clear from the work session, though an ARPA request from Escucha Mi Voz Washington will be discussed next week.