Durango and La Plata County families and employers struggle with the lack of accessible early child care, but two organizations have developed an action plan to address child care needs.

Representatives of the La Plata Economic Development Alliance and the Early Childhood Council of La Plata County introduced that plan to Durango City Council earlier this month.

Economic Development Alliance and Early Childhood Council executive directors Sarah Tober and Heather Hawke presented an Early Childcare Strategic Investment Plan, developed in coordination with the Regional Housing Alliance of La Plata County with feedback from employers, over 300 families and city of Durango staff.

The plan outlines an investment strategy to inject $20 million into the early childhood sector over the next five years through a child care investment fund and an infrastructure investment fund.

A $10 million child care investment fund was proposed to double the number of available child care slots for children ages 0-3 and raise wages for child care workers, thus making them easier to retain for child care employers, Hawk said. A $10 million infrastructure fund would be used to invest in child care center infrastructure.

She said the funding would be accrued from investments from regional employers who are already paying the costs of lack of child care through high turnover and needing to replace high-skilled workers, in addition to tapping philanthropic funding sources and possibly public sources.

She said one goal is to raise child care worker wages to a competitive rate of at least $20 per hour to the living wage of $24 per hour, as defined by the Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado, within the first three years of enacting the plan. That amounts to a wage increase for child care workers of approximately $4,000 per year.

“We would be working toward stabilizing our child care workforce through wage increases and accessibility to benefits with immediate impacts on retention and recruitment,” she said.

That requires a $1.2 million investment in early child care workforce wages per year and an $800,000 per year investment for new child care providers, including licensed home-based child care provider businesses and support for bringing existing facilities up to full capacity.

It would additionally create a bilingual child care option for families and address the infant and toddler child care desert in Ignacio and Bayfield.

Infrastructure investment is another goal, she said, noting the lack of physical space for child care centers and the aging out of facilities that won’t be eligible to continue their child care licenses within the next 5 to 10 years. Many active centers are located in historic buildings that are expensive to renovate and hard to bring up to code.

Hawk said the Economic Development Alliance and the Early Childhood Council advocated for reallocating county lodgers tax revenues to child care, which voters overwhelmingly approved in the November elections in addition to housing reallocations, and are interested in special municipal tax districts, mill levies, sales and property taxes, and tax-exempt revenue bonds or capital bonds.

The plan seeks two-year investments from eight of the largest regional employers for up to $50,000, with the incentive of a $25,000 state child care contribution tax credit for those employers.

She said philanthropic partners who have invested in La Plata County’s child care system for the past 28 years want to see local investments they can match.

The Economic Development Alliance and the Early Childhood Council have a two-phase plan implementation strategy.

Phase 1 will establish a cross-sector child care coalition to identify areas ripe for child care development, considering factors such as water use, zoning, land use, infrastructure and traffic, and to guide spending. A child care planning audit will also be conducted.

“During some interviews with employees of the city of Durango, there was some interest in looking at our local regulations through a child care lens,” Hawk said.

Phase 2 will begin at the end of the year with launching funds, she said. Southwest Bank has already been identified as a partner for the infrastructure fund. The bank offered to create a process for low-interest loans for infrastructure and planning and gap grants.

Tober said the Early Childcare Strategic Investment Plan will grow child care capacity 73% by 2029, including 15 new licensed homes or centers, increase child care wages to at least $20 to $24 per hour and stabilize the child care workforce, and to establish at least one bilingual, Spanish child care option for families.

Additionally, the plan will establish at least one child care center in Bayfield and Ignacio for infants and toddlers ages 0-3. Discussions are ongoing about parcels of land that could be used for that purpose.

She added the plan would also generate at least $21 million in additional earnings to La Plata County’s economy.

“We’re not in a position to recruit big business right now or much of any business, really, until we get the workforce housing and child care crisis under wraps,” she said.

cburney@durangoherald.com