Walsh County JDA making headway on child care center project

Grand Forks Herald - 3/19/2024

Mar. 19—GRAFTON, N.D. — Walsh County is on its way to having a licensed child care center. If the Grafton center moves forward as planned, the county will be on its way to leaving the number of North Dakota counties, currently 15, qualified as "child care deserts."

Stacie Sevigny, executive director of the Walsh County Job Development Authority and member of the Red River Regional Council, said the planned center is part of an effort to increase workforce recruitment and retention.

"Back in 2021, the regional council did a business retention and expansion project and interviewed 130 businesses in our region," she said. "The two major barriers to workforce recruitment and retention were child care and housing."

A building in Grafton, previously used as an office space, has been selected to be turned into a child care center. Other towns were looked at for possible locations, but the space available in the building and its location in a town with a significant employer base is what made the WCJDA choose it, Sevigny said.

The building will be owned by a nonprofit that will reduce overhead costs, and will rent out the space to a licensed provider. Through the nonprofit helping to cover expenses, the provider can afford to scale up the business and increase the number of slots available. A provider is already in place to operate, Sevigny said. An architect has also been hired and has drafted an initial floor plan for the building, as well as provided estimated construction costs.

The next step of the project is securing more funds and conducting bidding. Bidding is currently scheduled to start around May, though that time frame could change, Sevigny said, and she hopes to see contractors be interested in the project. The estimated opening is slated for late 2024 or early 2025.

"It's definitely taken longer than we had hoped," Sevigny said. "But, I definitely think we are on the right track now."

The Walsh County child care project was created by the Walsh County Job Development Authority to try to eliminate barriers to child care. Similar to the regional council's interviews, a Region 4 child care survey was conducted in 2022, which showed that 79% of 556 respondents said their work was impacted by child care arrangements falling through, and that waitlists for these arrangements could go up to three years. In support letters for the child care project the WCJDA has received, Sevigny said she was surprised to see many specific examples of the impact a lack of child care has on the workforce, such as employees not being able to find child care and thus not being able to start a job when they wanted to.

"One even had an employer talk about the fact that they have an employee driving their children 30 miles out of the way because that's where they could find an opening for child care," she said. "Our hope is that this project will alleviate some of that."

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