Consultant: Yankton Faces Childcare Crisis

Klein, a former childcare provider who became an advocate, now serves as president and CEO of the Klein Visioneering Group in Lead. She was hired to conduct a community-wide survey for Yankton and to determine available and possible facilities.

Yankton funded the study through a Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) planning grant to determine the local needs. A May 8 meeting at the  Elks Lodge will serve as follow-up, with the public encouraged to attend.

During Wednesday’s presentation, Klein shared some of the 82 comments she received during the survey, leaving out any identifying details.

“One person said, ‘I made $43 too much to qualify (for assistance), while others couldn’t find a place for their disabled child,” she said.

In other cases, a parent lost childcare because of red tape, she added.

In Yankton County, about 4,000 children ages 13 or younger are in families where both parents work or in single-parent families. This includes 1,236 children under age 6 and 2,771 school-age children (ages 6-13).

Klein surveyed Yankton parents between Feb. 26-March 11 of this year, with 424 parents with children under age 5 and school-age children responding.

She considered the 424 responses a high figure for Yankton’s population, reflecting the seriousness of the issue and a need for answers.

But the issue isn’t limited to parents, Klein said.

“We surveyed parents, providers and employers,” she said. “You may wonder why we would survey employers, but this has a very real impact on them.”

In Yankton County, more than 90% of mothers are working at some point, the survey found. The situation impacts the labor supply and economic development, as well as quality of life.

Childcare affects the entire community and not just families with children, Klein said. Parents without dependable — or any — childcare are missing work and even giving up or losing their jobs.

Even where parents maintain their jobs, they take a large amount of their paid time off (PTO) because of childcare issues, Klein added.

“Missing work has economic consequences for families. In the past six months, Yankton families lost (on average) between $336 and $1,002 in wages, depending upon parent wage levels,” she said.

“In our survey, 55.5% of parents reported missing work due to childcare challenges, with an estimated 30 hours of lost work hours.”

Yankton contains a high percentage of households where both parents work or are headed by single parents, Klein said.

“Mothers in Yankton are working,” she said. “They are working at a higher rater than the state averages.”

• In Yankton County, 92.8% of mothers with children under age 6 work, compared to 81.6% for South Dakota;

• In Yankton County, 79.2% of mothers with children under age 6 and age 6-17 years work, compared to 75.8% statewide;

• In Yankton County, 93.5% of mothers with children 6-17 years old are working.

Klein found a high demand for childcare for infants, toddlers and children with special needs. Care for those children is either extremely difficult to find or too expensive for most families.

Depending on the situation, families may pay more than $12,000 annually for childcare, Klein said. The demand for childcare soars during summer vacation when school isn’t in session.

During her presentation, Klein noted the demand far exceeds the supply. Not only are more parents seeking childcare, but many providers are limited in the number of children they can handle because of difficulty finding and keeping workers.

The average pay for childcare workers in South Dakotas stands at $11.97 per hour, almost never with benefits, and with the field seeing 83% worker turnover for a great deal of instability.

 “You can make more at McDonald’s than caring for children. And you have to keep up on classes and CPR when working in childcare,” Klein said. “Protecting and nurturing our youth is apparently not as important to getting cheeseburgers out the window.”

But if daycare workers receive higher wages, it puts a squeeze on the provider to raise rates.

“Parents don’t want to pay more and should not have to. But (childcare) workers can barely make ends meet. However, they are typically with those children for more hours than the parents,” Klein said.

“Workers are burnt out, the boss doesn’t want to pay and the parents don’t want to pay. It’s a cycle, and it’s exhausting.”

However, Yankton employers showed they recognize the gravity of the situation, Klein said.

“Employers were asked if they agreed or disagreed that the availability of affordable, quality childcare is important to the productivity of their workforce,” she said. “(Of those surveyed), 87.5% of employers strongly agreed. Another 10% somewhat agreed.”

During her presentation, Klein addressed the different childcare options in Yankton, with one setting meeting the needs of one child but not another.

She presented the projected costs per child by age group and scenario, possible next steps and how to enhance the quality of childcare in Yankton.

The audience raised a number of questions and comments about available government funding, private support and needs in terms of providers, staff and facilities.

In the end, the childcare crisis isn’t going away, Klein said.

The Yankton School District offers free pre-school, which keeps the local situation from becoming much worse, she said. However, the strong demand remains, particularly for families with infants, toddlers and disabled or special needs children.

“But Yankton also has a great deal of collaboration, of working together,” she said.

Yankton Thrive CEO Nancy Wenande agreed, noting Thrive, the City of Yankton, the Yankton School District and Mount Marty University are working together to conduct the survey and seek solutions.

However, the effort requires everyone, Wenande said.

“We need to come together. We already have a great collaboration, but I would like to see this room filled up at our May 8 meeting,” she said.

“We need to have this community conversation. Together, we can find some creative solutions.”

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