Hamilton County, Iowa, with the establishment of the Hamilton County Childcare Coalition has led the charge on Iowa’s local solution to the childcare funding crisis. Our wage enhancement program created in early 2021 through public and private partnership has helped Hamilton County and the State of Iowa catapult to the national spotlight.

Hamilton County’s child care wage enhancement program was created to provide childcare workers with a livable and competitive wage along with assisting non-profit childcare centers to retain current workers and recruit new ones.

When we started our research back in October of 2020, we found that all childcare centers in Hamilton County were paying a starting wage of $8 per hour, compared to the food service industry that had raised its pay rates to $12 to 15 per hour. Our centers were losing child care staffers due to the wage disparity.

In our efforts to prevent the closures of any of the four non-profit childcare centers in Hamilton County, the Childcare Coalition held community meetings with local leaders, area employers, and the school district. These meetings were focused on finding local solutions to address the childcare shortage that Hamilton County was facing.

From these meetings, the Coalition launched media educational campaigns to make residents, the community, employers and local leaders aware of the issues we faced.

Families cannot solve this issue alone.

Communities, employers and local leaders can help because we are in this together and because together we are stronger.

Without affordable and available childcare, employers are not able to hire and fill vacancies.

Without affordable and available childcare, on average, a parent misses two weeks of work which then affects the workplace.

Having access to available and affordable childcare doesn’t just affect the families, it affects the employers as well.

Hamilton County Childcare Coalition, through this understanding, created a public/private partnership with the city, county, area employers, Enhance Hamilton County Foundation, and Building Families (our local Area Early Childhood Agency) to develop and administer a wage enhancement program.

This program subsidizes the wages of most childcare workers from between $2.85 to $4.10, allowing childcare workers to earn between $12 to $16 per hour.

To date, our wage enhancement program has been going on three years strong. Our centers have added a total of 104 childcare slots, retained 20 workers, and hired 12 new workers. Currently, two of the four non-profit childcare centers are looking to expand via renovation or new build. This would add much needed additional childcare slots here in Hamilton County as the wait list in some of our child care centers are often months, if not years, long.

The structure and success of Hamilton County wage enhancement program has been recognized by Iowa Health and Human Services.

Director Kelly Kennedy Garcia has encouraged other communities in Iowa to develop a similar program and earlier this year announced a new state grant program to assist communities in developing a similar public/private partnership to fund a local wage enhancement program in their community. Our coalition was pleased to be one of the first grant recipients of this new state grant that will allow us to supplement the local funds that are being provided by area businesses and local government here in Hamilton County.

On a national stage, Sheri Penney, from the Iowa’s Women Foundation, who has been working hand in hand with the Hamilton County Childcare Coalition, was invited by the U.S. Department of Commerce to share information about Hamilton County’s wage enhancement program at the National Childcare Innovation Summit in June. This has allowed Sheri to provide resources about our program to other states looking to create a local wage enhancement program for their childcare.

Our success would not have been possible without the support from our area businesses and local leaders.

Funding requests for the coming year were recently sent out to the area businesses that were instrumental in developing and funding the Hamilton County program over the past three years.

THANK YOU for your continued support of this program.

This public/private partnership has been a catalyst for success here in Hamilton County. It’s a great reminder that we are all in this together and together we can accomplish anything. The vitality of a community is dependent on how we can improve the well being and quality of life for our residents.

Cindy Im is the economic development director for Hamilton County Development.