The future of a child care initiative spearheaded by the city of Boulder is unclear after two Jefferson County Commissioners were split on Tuesday over whether to spend $110,000 in county American Rescue Plan Act funds to purchase and transport a building from Jim Darcy Elementary School north of Helena to serve as a facility for child care in the city.
Commissioners Cory Kirsch and Bob Mullen were sharply divided in the commission’s regular meeting Tuesday afternoon over whether the funds, which are earmarked to be spent on child care, should be spent on acquiring a facility that Mullen argued would disproportionately benefit Boulder over other areas of the county. Commission Chairman Leonard Wortman was absent—unable to break a likely tie between Kirsch and Mullen if the matter went to a vote—and the matter was continued to the commission’s Aug. 4 meeting.
The Boulder City Council formally requested the $110,000 of ARPA funding from the county at the City Council’s July 19 meeting. The ARPA money can only be dispensed to nonprofits and government bodies, City Council President Drew Dawson said, and the city’s Child Care Working Group, an offshoot of the Boulder Transition Advisory Committee that Dawson chairs, is neither of those—though it is working on becoming one. The city requested ARPA funds to buy the facility on the working group’s behalf and plans to donate the building to the group once it receives its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.
City leaders have maintained that neither the city nor the working group intend to operate a child care facility. Dawson and Mayor Rusty Giulio said the goal is to acquire a suitable facility in which a third-party child care operation can establish itself.
Mullen said at the meeting that he wasn’t comfortable granting $110,000 of ARPA funds to a project he believed would benefit only Boulder, especially when Montana City and Clancy have privately owned daycare facilities. Dawson said he was concerned that Mullen was adopting a “parochial attitude” towards the decision, arguing that economic development does not occur in isolation—a boost to Boulder would help the county as a whole.
Kirsch said that the county still had $140,000 in ARPA funding allocated for childcare, and argued that the Boulder facility is the “perfect opportunity to spend it.”
“I’ve been in support of this for quite some time, and I think the county has been through our public comment period for the ARPA funds,” Kirsch said.
Mullen worried that because past efforts to offer child care in Boulder had failed, the current initiative might not be sustainable.
Kirsch said that even if a child care operation in the facility failed, Boulder would still have a new facility in the vicinity of the Boulder Elementary School—the location the city plans to place the building—that could benefit children. Dawson said that the Child Care Working Group nonprofit, once established, would develop a thorough sustainability plan, and that child care services would not be offered for free.
Purchasing the building and moving it to Boulder is much more cost efficient than building a new facility, which would cost about $500,000, Giulio said previously. Dawson said previously that the Boulder Childcare Working Group has looked at existing spaces in Boulder but had trouble finding a suitable space. The group explored offering child care at the Methodist church’s Youth Hall, Dawson said, but its capacity would be 12–15 children—about 50 children are in need of childcare in Boulder, according to the needs assessment the group conducted.
Mullen said at the meeting that he wasn’t willing to make a decision just yet.
“We have a multitude of places we can spend money, and childcare is one of them,” he said. Mullen said that the Animal Shelter and Care Committee wasn’t asking for county money, and he asked why the child care group couldn’t consider using donations from the public.
“Money makes the world go ’round,” he said.
Dawson said that child care is one of the priorities of ARPA. He said child care is an urgent issue and reiterated that the city has about 50 children in need of child care. He said it is important as a “social issue,” but is also an economic development issue for the community. Dawson said that a decision was urgent because the city has to make a final decision on whether to buy the building by Aug. 7, and Giulio already put down $5,000 of his own money on the building. He said he worried that if they did not “get a start on it, they won’t qualify for funding” from other sources.
“We need to get our foot in the door,” Dawson said, “if we lose the momentum because we don’t pay for [the building], then most of the momentum goes down the tubes, and then I think it’s unlikely that there will be a program.”
Mullen questioned why the city wasn’t pouring more money into the project. Dawson said that the city would likely put more money toward child care once it allocates its ARPA funds at a meeting later this month.
“Part of our public is our young kids. That’s our future,” Giulio said. “If you’re out there in the working world and see what’s going on, this is one of the biggest issues we have to deal with.”
The Jefferson County Commission will again discuss possibly funding the purchase and relocation of the proposed child care building during the body’s Aug. 4 meeting in Boulder.
