News

Forum held for day care crisis

Scott Wagar

09/03/2013

The Bottineau Chamber of Commerce sponsored a special forum on Wednesday evening to discuss the topic of finding day care for local families in the Bottineau area because there is no room in any of the day cares in Bottineau at the present moment.

The Chamber meeting room was full with a number of day care owners and mothers who have concerns over the current day care situation.
The Chamber, represented by Clint Reinoehl, director of the Chamber; Brandy Simpson, vice-president of the Chamber and mediator of the public forum and Jeremy Tweed, Chamber board member.

“One of the things we have been talking about in the Chamber is that child care is a huge issue in the community and the great impact it is having,” Reinoehl said. “So, we asked were we should start and having a forum like this would be a great opportunity to talk about what is going on and talk about what you are experiencing. It is kind of an educational process for everybody in town what is happening.”

There are currently 17 day cares in Bottineau, of which 12 are licensed group providers, two that can take more than seven children, two family care providers which can take seven children and three self declared day care providers which are not licensed but can watch up to five children. The 17 day care providers are currently full with a waiting list for some.

This past year, the Bottineau Day Care Association saw four day cares close.

EDC’S DAY CARE
   
The first order of business in the forum was an update on the EDC attempting to construct a day care at Dakota College at Bottineau, where the state has agreed to donate the land for the use of a day care for the local area.

Dr. Ken Grosz was given the floor first to speak about DCB’s part in the day care.

“One topic that got back to me is that the day care project was struggling because the college had pulled out of the situation but I just wanted to assure everybody that this is not true,” Grosz said. “We are still planning to donate that plot of land to the child care project. We have gone through all the processes with the State Board of Higher Education and it is all ready to go.”

Grosz added that the confusion might have come from the adult care portion of the project, which was removed from the plan to minimize the cost.
Diane Olson, EDC director, spoke next on the day care.

She stated that one of the difficulties the EDC is facing in getting the day care center constructed, and in operation, was due to one of its partners, Head Start, which lost its federal funding this spring.  

Olson also stated other issues with Bottineau’s Head Start were qualifying students in the income bracket and the program’s inability to find a teacher this school year. With these issues, Head Start closed its doors in Bottineau.

Another issue is the high cost of construction throughout the nation and state at the present moment.

Olson informed the individuals at the forum that the EDC has placed the total cost of the project at $950,000.

“We went through the bidding process in May and our first bid came in at $1.3 million, and that is totally unaffordable for anyone and everyone,” Olson said. “We were able to chip it back a little bit to $1.1 million, but still we need to drive that down.”

Olson also stated that the EDC needs to raise $512,000 in cash to come into this project, in which the EDC has $220,000 in place. She added that through legislation on child care this past legislative year she was able to acquire $185,500 in grant money for the day care project. With the grant money, the day care project is about $104,000 short of its total.

Olson was asked when the day care would be ready. She stated that she did not want to comment on that considering the construction timeline could change. However, Olson did state that the EDC could break ground by this fall, but that was not certain.

Once constructed, the day care facility can take up to 51 children, that are infants to five years-old.

FORUM
          
There were four steps the Chamber wanted to discuss after the update by Olson and Grosz, which included

  •  Identify Current Resources
  •  Identify Current Need
  •  Identify Short Term Solutions
  •  Next Steps (to solve the situation)


With the current day cares full and some having a waiting a list in Bottineau there were no current resources for individuals looking for day care and that the need was there.

There was a long discussion on short term solutions for day care. However, solutions were not really found due to state regulations on what a day care needs. (Day cares need to be fenced in with a green area for children to play in, safety measures inside the day care, a kitchen to prepare meals, etc…)

A number of buildings and homes were brought to the attention of the Chamber members, but one state regulation after another disallowed a specific building or home to qualify.

A couple of buildings did have some possibility, which the Chamber is going to investigate.

At the end of the meeting, guests to the forum were given a questionnaire to fill out with the following questions:

  • Openings currently available
  • Current waiting list – how long
  • Do you provide backup day care
  • Age groups you currently are not taking
  • What challenges are you currently facing as a current or potential provider
  • What are some solutions you see that would help to provide relief


The meeting ended with the Chamber stating that they would look into some possibilities, go over the questionnaires that were filled out and schedule another day care meeting in hopes of solving this present situation in Bottineau in quick order.