CEDCO requests up to $500K from Jasper County for child care center

Colfax Economic Development Corporation, or CEDCO, has formally requested the Jasper County Board of Supervisors to donate up to $500,000 towards the upcoming child care center project in Colfax. The request was made at the end of a 25-minute presentation during the Tuesday morning supervisors meeting.

Tim Salmon, superintendent of the Colfax-Mingo Community School District and vice-president of CEDCO, told supervisors that CEDCO received a $1.7 million grant from Iowa Workforce Development to build a new child care center. The center will be operated by the school district when fully constructed.

The facility — which has already broken ground — directly addresses an issue many rural communities face: a lack of available and affordable child care.

State data shows Jasper County is short more than 1,000 spots for daycare.

“From my perspective as superintendent of a school district, we struggle with our parents finding places for their kids to go,” Salmon said. “And the other big thing is the affordability of child care because child care is extremely expensive. We set goals if we can get this opened up we’d keep our prices as low as we could.”

In total, the Colfax-Mingo Child Care Center is estimated to cost $3.4 million. The plan is to construct a more than 12,000-square-foot building with a capacity of 140 children, from newborns to school-age kids. It will also have before- and after-school care. Colfax-Mingo was one of nine centers approved by the state.

CEDCO, the recipient of the grant, is still in the process of raising funds for the project. There is still around $850,000-$900,000 left to fundraise.

“Our big thing to you guys is to say, hey, this is something that’s going to benefit not only Colfax and Mingo, but this is something that is going to benefit the entire county and see if you guys are interested in helping us out and looking and what this could do,” Salmon said to the county board of supervisors.

Supervisor Doug Cupples asked what would happen if the money does not come in through additional donations. Salmon said CEDCO gets that question a lot.

“We look at other options,” Salmon said. “We talked to some private investors that said, ‘Hey, we’d invest in your project.’ We’ve also talked with some banks that said, ‘Hey, we could give you a loan,’ and we get a short-term loan to pay this off as we continue to raise.”

People have already signed up to get their kids enrolled, which means the facility will generate money. The child care center’s rates will be some of the lowest across the county. Which is why Salmon said CEDCO does not want to take a loan, because that means the costs get passed down to the parents.

CEDCO noted the county could also donate funds over time. So their $500,000 request would be stretched out over a period of a few years. The board of supervisors appreciated CEDCO making a presentation but agreed they could not make a decision at the moment, but possibly could in the next few weeks.