Photo by Jody Issackson Clarkfield City Council Member Sue Fritz, Clarkfield Charter School Director Kathy Koetter and Clarkfield City Administrator Amanda Luepke presented a request for $25,000 in funding a daycare in Clarkfield at the YMC board meeting Tuesday.

GRANITE FALLS — The Yellow Medicine County Board voted 3-2 to approve a $25,000 donation to the Cardinal Kids Daycare program in Clarkfield during its meeting Tuesday.

Clarkfield City Administrator Amanda Luepke, Clarkfield Charter School Director Kathy Koetter and Clarkfield City Council Member Sue Fritz presented the request to the county board.

The three women told the board that the daycare project had broken ground on the old parochial portion of the Yellow Medicine East School property in Clarkfield that had been procured for the daycare site.

“There will be room for 24 infants, 14 toddlers and 20 preschool-aged children,” Luepke said. “There are already 22 infants on the waiting list.”

Cardinal Kids has a pilot program started in the charter school and is doing well.

Financials included charging $140 a week per child whether the child was in daycare every day or not, which stabilizes the income.

The new building is scheduled to be opened on Dec. 1. It seemed that all they may have to wait for is the licensure.

There is an extensive daycare shortage, they said.

“The problem extends well beyond our county,” Koetter said. “This (project) expanded greater than I had initially anticipated. There are families from Dawson, Monte, Granite Falls, Cottonwood and Canby on the waiting list.”

Cardinal Kids have applied for several grants for child care funding and has strong support from businesses in Clarkfield, the women said. The new center would be publicly run by their board.

F&M Bank is a large supporter, and Prairie Grain is going after some funding as well, they said.

“We’ve also talked to the private (daycare) providers, and they’re supportive, too,” Luepke said. “They’re full and can’t take on anymore infants for about two years.”

Two commissioners had a concern about providing funds for a city-run daycare.

“I’m concerned about giving money to just one daycare,” Commissioner John Berends said. “I’d like to see us do something that serves all the county. There’d be a limit on each day care and each center.”

Commissioner Ron Antony shared the same concern as Berends. Antony wants to keep all the communities “on the same playing field.”

At that point, Board Chair Gary Johnson opened the discussion to citizens’ comments.

Granite Falls Economic Development Director Cathy Anderson addressed the board.

“We partnered with (three) other organizations to create a set of financials and proposals,” Anderson said of Granite Falls’ daycare task force.

Her group had been working with Minnesota West Community and Technical College to reopen the daycare space vacated by Prairie Five recently.

The Granite Falls group is looking to remove a wall to make more space in order to make a go of the private enterprise that would reopen that daycare. The remodeling would provide room for eight infants, 12 toddlers and 20 preschoolers, she said. It could open as early as June 2018.

“I was told that the county board wasn’t in the daycare business and wouldn’t consider contributing money toward it,” Anderson said, or she would have approached them earlier.

Anderson cited their financial steps such as a savings account open for public donations and applications for grants.

The Granite Falls daycare task force was also hoping for a level playing field and a piece of the pie.

Antony spoke up saying that he could see giving the requested $25,000 to the Clarkfield daycare because it would provide nine employees to the county’s economic base.

“We could look at it as a EDA project because of the nine employees,” he said.

Berends suggested checking out Chippewa’s program to see if YMC could adopt it with some tweaking. Then he suggested moving $75,000 into the EDA fund for funding, prioritizing daycares, and up to $25,000 each, including home daycares.

“But then, we’d be using levy money on this,” Antony said.

“It’s all taxpayer dollars,” Commissioner Greg Renneke said. “We’d be giving it back to the taxpayers. It’s a great need. I move to make the $25,000 to Clarkfield.”

Antony seconded, saying, “Going forward, the city should put up an equal amount as the county, just like Clarkfield is planning to do.”

After casting the deciding vote, Johnson told Anderson that Granite Falls was welcome to come back and ask again. If they had their plan as spelled-out as Clarkfield, he would have no problem voting in favor of it as well.