SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — An open forum during Tuesday’s meeting of the Watertown City Council became a venue for emotional pleas for help from members of the community fearing the loss of child care access.
During the public comment period, Watertown Mayor Ried Holien was upfront with the gathered audience, telling them that there is no solution to the problem at hand.
“We don’t have one right now,” he said during the meeting. “We know it’s going to involve some money, but more than that it’s going to require partnership.”
Holien’s intro to the public comment session was followed up by a procession of parents and community members expressing their concern and emotions surrounding the crisis in Watertown, with one person pointing out that their family had moved to Watertown specifically because they were told they would be able to find child care.
But that child care is now far from certain and the deadline to do something is coming up fast.
Sara Foust, Director of Codington County Community Services, spoke with KELOLAND News about the issue.
The immediate topic at hand is the potentially imminent closure of Little Blessing Daycare.
At the end of April 2024, Little Blessings Christian Daycare & Learning Center announced that it will be moving to a new location, occupying a space within the Harmony Hills monastery.
“The monastery has worked really hard to reach out to businesses to try to get businesses to support that effort,” Foust said. “Unfortunately, there hasn’t been the community support that we had hoped for that to happen.”
Foust said that what Harmony Hills needs is around $500,000 to begin the process of setting up the facility to house Little Blessings.
“If nothing comes through here, probably in the next couple of weeks, as far as funding — we’ll probably just face the closure of the child care facility without any other alternatives,” said Foust.
Little Blessings is not the only option being discussed for child care in the city. There is also Educare, which is housed at Lake Area Technical College, and a plan to convert the former Roosevelt Elementary into a center.
Each of these will need funding to get the ball rolling though, says Foust. As mentioned, Harmony Hills needs $500,000 for renovations. Educare has room to expand, but would need somewhere in the neighborhood of $150k to get that started, while the Roosevelt plan would need around $200k to get moving, said Foust.
Watertown has multiple businesses that Foust and others believe could come forward to provide funding for these expenditures, but these funds have not been forthcoming.
“Without businesses coming forward, I think I don’t know how we can really fully solve the problem,” said Foust, adding that people don’t want to see taxpayer funds go to pay for child care. “Our largest employers in town probably have the resources but aren’t wanting to put their resources towards child care.”
Mayor Holien also alluded to the desire for local businesses to help with the situation.
“I just want to point out to any businesses; any other entity watching — some of the emotion that you’re seeing in these people — this is what real life is in Watertown,” he said between hearing from citizens. “This is how important this issue is.”
These costs, however — $500k in one facility, plus $150k and $200k in others — are not the costs to bring the facilities to full operation. Foust says that it will take much more; estimating the total at around $3-4 million to get all three facilities fully running.
“That’s not operational costs going forward,” said Foust. “That’s just structural costs for the buildings.”
While the pressing issue of the moment is securing some funding for at least one of these projects, Foust says that in reality, all three are needed.
“We need all three of them to actually meet the capacity needs of our community,” Foust said. Prior to the announcement that Little Blessings is likely to close, Foust said there was a need for 600 child care slots in Watertown. A closure of Little Blessings would add and additional 150, said Foust, bringing the total need to 750 child care slots in the city.
That loss could have serious consequences for Watertown, Foust explained.
“The reality is that means that parents are making choices about do they or don’t they work,” she said. “Who stays home, what schedules do they work, what sick days do they take? It really is that full blown community impact if we don’t have the workers that we need to have because people can’t find child care.”
Holien also hit on this point during the council meeting, calling the crisis both an economic development issue and a quality-of-life issue.
Quality is a keyword here. Foust brought up the suggestion some have made that an influx of new in-home daycares could solve the problem.
“The concern is not everybody’s able to do that and it’s a very difficult profession to go into and you need support to make that happen,” said Foust. “Will those be safe home environments for kids?” she asked.
Foust, who herself ran a daycare for a few years, expressed her own concerns. “It’s probably the most isolating profession you can be in because you are alone with children all day long without the social outlet and the connections,” she said.
“So we really actually do need all three facilities to meet the capacity needs so that we can start looking at quality because that’s one of the discussions we haven’t really even been able to have, is quality child care for our kids. We just are so focused on capacity right now,” said Foust.
