With funding currently short of where it needs to be for a planned daycare center in Keota, the Keota School Board is considering action up to and including taking the facility over from the Keokuk County Childcare Network.

At the board’s August 14 meeting, Keota Elementary School Principal Seth Milledge and shared Pekin and Keota Superintendent Dave Harper discussed the financial situation of the proposed Keota Childcare Center.

Currently, the center has a budget shortfall preventing it from hiring a director, which the facility would need to have to operate under Iowa law. This is in part due to interest only being expressed to fill 18 of the 31 spots that would be available, with Milledge indicating that if all 31 spots were full, the center would be close to, if not entirely, self-sufficient. Harper said that the district is also planning to apply for several grants to help fund the m project, whether it was run by Keota or the KCCN.

Harper presented the board with four options: Wait on the KCCN to be ready to open the daycare center, fully take over the daycare project, take over temporarily with a stipulation to return control to the KCCN next summer, giving the organization more time to find funding, or outsourcing the work to another daycare provider.

Harper said he would work with Keota Business Manager Amy Greiner to have a budgetary analysis on the project done prior to the next meeting so the board could make a more educated decision.

Milledge emphasized that he doesn’t want to start a project that would be unsustainable in the long term, “We’re not going to start something to see it fail within a year. We want this to be something that is sustainable 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line.”

The board has already secured grants for furniture and other items within the daycare facility.

The topic is expected to return to the board as an official agenda item next month.