Hancock County Commissioners approve childcare analysis

HANCOCK COUNTY (DAILY REPORTER) — The Hancock County Commissioners approved an analysis to research the state of childcare within the county at their Oct. 15 meeting.

According to Zach Rice, Director of Indiana for TPMA, a consulting firm based out of Indianapolis, who was speaking on the project, the project is looking at the “total picture” of childcare in Hancock County. Specifically, the analysis will examine the availability, affordability, demand and long-term outlook of childcare over the next 10 years with the goal of finding the gap between where childcare is now and where it needs to be. It will also look to identify the number of parents who, due to the current price of childcare in the county, are currently not in the workforce who would otherwise want to work. Those numbers would also show what the potential economic growth would be from childcare investment.

This will not be the first study of its type in the county, but will be the deepest and most quantitative, according to Rice.

Commissioner Gary McDaniel said the study would be valuable for future grant processes. The study would give the county the ability to demonstrate potential for return on investment during applications.

At previous county meetings, county officials have mentioned a desire for a childcare facility at the Amplify campus. Specifically, county engineer Gary Pool recommended at September’s Redevelopment Commission meeting that the county leases out land in the second phase of Project Amplify to a third-party childcare vendor rather than establishing its own facility. This study would allow the county to accurately assess whether or not propositions such as Pool’s are necessary or worthwhile.

TPMA’s goal is to have the final results of the study early in 2025.

Childcare affordability is an issue throughout the United States, as demonstrated by a 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Labor, which found that prices “ranged from $4,810 for school-age home-based care in small counties to $15,417 for infant center-based care in very large counties,” accounting for anywhere from 8-19% of the median income in those counties. According to information from the Indiana Youth Institute, Hancock County has a cost-to-income ratio of 9.6%. Indiana, however, was one of three states, alongside New Mexico and Utah, which was not included in the Department of Labor study, meaning that the information is not a direct one-to-one comparison. According to the National Database of Childcare Prices, which is run by the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, “Indiana’s data could not be used because the state only provides reimbursement rates. Reimbursement rate data cannot be used to calculate market rate data.” This meant that the Department could not accurately calculate median market rates for the state.

This article originally appeared in The Daily Reporter.