GRANITE FALLS — The Yellow Medicine County Commissioners debated the merits of proposed child care grant program amounts at their Tuesday board meeting.

A task force appointed by the county board came up with prospective dollar amounts for the two different styles of day care providers seeking start-up assistance from the county.

County Administrator Peg Heglund and Family Services Director Rae Ann Keeler-Aus were on hand to field questions regarding the proposed program.

The proposed rates were $2,500 loan limit for center based providers and $1,500 loan limit for family based providers. Each application would be for a five year deferred loan period, Heglund said. Twenty percent of the loan was forgiven each year if the borrower remained in business. Remaining loan balances at a point less than five years would be due immediately, she said.

“If they can’t pay a lump sum, payment arrangements can be made,” Heglund said. “However, interest would be charged.”

“New providers will definitely take advantage of the loan program,” Keeler-Aus said. “The well-established providers might not.”

Quickly calculating the number of daycares in the county that may want to take advantage of this program Board Chair Ron Antony said that funding the potential 30 applicants would mean having $75,000 setting out there.

Commissioner Gary Johnson was not pleased because if any of the providers would default on their loans, the money would not be returned to replenish the fund.

Antony agreed, saying, “We have no teeth to recoup the money to a daycare center that fails.”

Commissioner Glen Kack said that he thought the distribution of funds was lopsided. However, Commissioner John Berends said the plan was similar to one he had seen in another county, but he thought that something else was off.

“Echo was asking for $2,500 like Clarkfield,” Berends said. “If we knock down Echo’s (give them less), we’re not being fair.”

Antony pointed out that Echo is not building a new building like Clarkfield did.

Berends had another concern to share. “Calls have been coming in saying, ‘You’re paying someone to compete against my business. When you owned the restaurant (Bootleggers), how would you like it if it happened to you?’ I wouldn’t have,” Berends said.

“Actually, Clarkfield came with letters of support from home based businesses,” Antony said. “If the local city supports it, that’s a huge thing for me. I would be in favor of matching the local city up to $2,500. It’s not fair for us to give $2,500 if the city they’re doing it in isn’t putting in anything.”

The commissioners held a discussion about what constituted in-kind donations.

“Isn’t ‘in-kind’ like the use of a vehicle or free rent?” Heglund asked.

“Anything designated as ‘in-kind’ has to have a value assigned to it,” Antony said. “But you can’t count labor.”

“I’m not for having to set figures just to set figures,” Johnson said.

Would there be an ongoing need for day care centers, Heglund asked.

“These three day cares stepped up when we were at a low for these services,” she said, “but there’s no guarantee it would be feasible for new day care facilities to start up in the future.”

Heglund also asked, “Why are we spinning our wheels coming up with a program when (Puddle Jumpers) isn’t even asking us for money? Echo, Clarkfield and Granite Falls centers stepped up to fill the gap, and the Granite Falls center didn’t even ask for funding.”

Johnson added that centers could not come up after the fact and ask for funding, after the work had been done. Prior approval for equipment purchases would need to be given by the county board, he said.

It was agreed that more thought had to be given to the grant program before anything was voted on.