$200,000 OK’d for childcare training

By Kevin O’Brien

With the goal of opening up 240 daycare slots for children in Marathon County, the county board voted last week to spend $200,000 in federal money for a pilot scholarship program that will pay for training, hiring and retaining 30 childcare workers.

By a vote of 33-2, supervisors approved a budget amendment which will allow the county to spend a portion of its unspent money from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) on a service contract with Childcaring, Inc, a daycare referral and support service based in Wausau. Under the terms of the contract, written by county administrator Lance Leonhard, Childcaring will be responsible for recruiting childcare workers and helping them get hired at both group childcare centers and home-based daycares.

Of the $200,000 ARPA allocation, $50,000 will be spent on training 30 new childcare workers and the remaining $150,000 will be split into $5,000 stipends for each new worker so providers can increase wages and cover onboarding costs, such as background checks.

The proposal came from the Education, Extension and Economic Development Committee, which has been trying to come up with a way to address the county’s chronic childcare shortage for over a year now. Committee chairwoman Stacey Morache and Kelly Borchardt, director of Childcaring Inc, are members of an informal working group that have been brainstorming ideas since earlier this year. Morache said the longterm plan is to develop a public-private partnership to support childcare providers, who have struggled to stay open due to an inability

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to pay workers a competitive wage while still keeping their tuition affordable for working families. She said the scholarship program will only last for two years on the $200,000 in ARPA money, but she hopes that will give the county and private employers time to see what works.

“We have to start somewhere,” she said. “We can’t just let this go.”

Ald. Gayle Marshall, however, said private employers are going to benefit the most from this scholarship, so she believes they should be required to invest their own resources. She proposed an amendment that would require a dollar-for-dollar match from the Wausau Area Chamber of Commerce. It would also take the money out of the administrator’s contingency instead of ARPA and require daycare providers to be reimbursed rather than paid upfront.

“If childcare is a priority for the chamber, I don’t find $100,000 as a heavy lift for this community,” she said.

Morache said spending $200,000 on childcare is a good use of ARPA money, which was meant to help local governments deal with the “devastating effects of COVID.” Dave Eckmann, executive director of the chamber, is a member of the informal childcare group, but he would have to get permission from the chamber’s board of directors to contribute $100,000 toward the scholarship initiative. Morache said waiting for the chamber to match the county’s contribution would unnecessarily delay the program.

Supervisor John Robinson noted that 35 percent of women who left the workforce during the pandemic haven’t come back, and said neighboring Wood County recently allocated $500,000 to contract for childcare services Robinson and others said the need for more childcare workers is immediate, and some employers are already subsidizing childcare costs.

“I think it is critical that we get this program off the ground to increase the supply to address this critical need in this community and eliminate some of those childcare deserts,” he said.

Supervisor Tim Sondelski, on the other hand, said it’s not the government’s role to ensure that everyone has affordable childcare and he expressed concerns about the scholarship program becoming part of the property tax levy once the ARPA funds run out.

“Childcaring should not be the responsibility of the taxpayers,” he said, noting the county should focus more on eliminating “egregious regulations and red tape” that may keep people from entering the childcare field.

In response, Morache said the program is not about subsidizing people’s childcare, but enabling the county to expand its workforce.

Borchardt said she has surveyed local childcare providers, and 75 percent of them expressed an interest in applying for a portion of the $200,000 to recruit and retain new workers.

Supervisor Thomas Seubert, who represents the towns of Day and McMillan and portions of Marshfield, said a majority of his constituents go outside Marathon County for childcare services, so he wondered how they would benefit. Borchardt acknowledged that the money would be reserved for Marathon County providers only, but people living outside the county could take advantage of the training opportunities.

To ensure accountability, Leonhard said he included provisions in the county’s contract with Childcaring that requires updates every six months on the number of new childcare workers who have completed the training program and the number of children and families being served by those workers. At the end of the two-year contract, Childcaring will need to submit a comprehensive report detailing how the stipends were spent, the total number of trainees who have stayed in the childcare field and the number of new childcare slots that have been created.

Leonhard said he anticipates that childcare providers will use much of the stipend money to boost salaries, something they are currently unable to to do without making their tuition unaffordable for working families.

“One of the foundational issues is that the math quite honestly just doesn’t work,” he said.

Marshall’s amendment failed on an 8-27 vote, and the original motion to approve the $200,000 ARPA allocation passed 332, with no votes from Marshall and Sondelski.

Other business

■ ■ The board approved continued county funding for the following non-profit organizations in 2025: The Women’s Community, Judicare, Marathon County Historical Society, United Way 211 and North Central Community Action and Marathon County Economic Development Corporation. The county’s funding amounts will remain the same as this year under written service agreements.

Sondelski voted against funding for the Women’s Community, citing concerns with “transgender stuff” in the organization’s booklet, which he said “hurts women.” Supervisor Deb Hoppa also voted against funding for the Women’s Community.

■ ■ The board approved $468,000 in bridge and culvert aid for 22 projects around the county.

■ ■ The board approved the creation of a joint task force between the county and the city of Wausau to address the problem of homelessness.

■ ■ The board voted unanimously to accept a $3,200 from the Central Wisconsin Military Show to the Veterans Service Office, to be used for financial assistance for veterans with emergency needs.