Lawmakers have not seen ‘anything specific’ regarding child care legislation

Families are waiting for openings at child care center at the same time facilities are searching for workers to care for the influx of children.

Rep. Jon Dunwell told visitors of the legislative gathering hosted by the League of Women Voters of Jasper County that child care continues to be a huge issue at the statehouse. The emphasis last year was on quantity, he said, but part of the issue he wants to explore more is quality.

“Everywhere we look we’re trying to figure out how we can get more folks into the child care (profession), for child care workers,” he said. “Some of that has to do with wages, but if you raise wages you raise costs. So it’s just trying to balance that out. A lot of what the governor has done is create private partnerships.”

In 2021, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds established the Governor’s Child Care Task Force, which is comprised of public and private members. The task force was created to develop a comprehensive strategy and make recommendations to the child care shortage. The task force also opened up more grant opportunities.

Some of the grants offer businesses money to cover the infrastructure costs of in-house day care. However, Dunwell noted he has “not seen anything specific this year” for expanding child care. Sen. Ken Rozenboom said it is a problem that cannot be fixed overnight.

“Over the last several years — especially since COVID — daycare or child care centers have been closing down,” Rozenboom said. “We try to do all sorts of things to do that. But to have government just come in and solve it for everybody, it doesn’t work like that.”

Fran Henderson, of Newton, told Rozenboom she is not asking government to take over child care. But the conversations Rozenboom and Dunwell have with their political party deal with businesses stepping in and picking up some of this problem, she said, suggesting it might not be the answer.

Especially for day cares providing subsidized care and who are looking for workers for their facilities.