Johnson: Reject the St. Paul child care ballot question

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St. Paul voters soon will decide whether to raise property taxes to support child care for the city’s youngest lower-income kids. Though that’s certainly a needed, worthy endeavor, doing it through the city is not the most effective way to make it happen.

The Nov. 5 ballot question will ask Capitol City citizens to approve increasing those taxes by $2 million a year, compounding annually, until $20 million a year is levied in year 10. Those funds would subsidize families and supplement existing state, federal, public school and nonprofit child care assistance programs.

To do that, the city would create and staff a new social service division to administer the program for babies and preschoolers. City workers shouldn’t start from scratch to take this on. It would be more practical to expand existing, proven programs to cover care for more of the city’s children from infancy to age 4.

To be sure, low-income families need the help. According to Child Care Aware of Minnesota, the median monthly cost for child care in Ramsey County is $1,085, or more than $13,000 annually. And research has shown that investing in the youngest among us brings societal and economic dividends when well-educated kids become contributing adults.

That’s why the emphasis should be placed on expanding programs such as Head Start and other county, state and federal programs that would open up more slots for preschoolers.

Since 2017, advocates including Council Member Rebecca Noecker have been working to provide city support for early education. The effort was spearheaded by the St. Paul All Ready for Kindergarten coalition, or SPARK, with the goal of helping 5,000 St. Paul families pay for the rising costs of child care. Noecker has said it is designed to start small and grow over time, and acknowledges that there are greater funding needs than the levy would initially cover.

The ballot proposal is being urged by the “Yes for St. Paul Families” coalition, which is chaired by Halla Henderson, a St. Paul school board member. And it is backed by Noecker and several other council members. (State Rep. Dave Pinto had earlier suggested he was leaning toward the early education effort. However, more recently said he is not supporting the St. Paul child care referendum.)

But it’s opposed by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who agrees about the need for more child care help but believes that the city couldn’t provide it with the funds that would be raised. Carter said a city staff analysis concluded that fulfilling the ballot language’s promises would cost more than $100 million per year.

“We’re asking voters if they want to buy a brand-new Corvette for 30 bucks,” Carter told journalists. “Like, yes, I do … [but] I can’t buy a brand-new Corvette for 30 bucks.”

Carter added that even if voters approved the measure, his administration wouldn’t implement it. Because the ballot question only “authorizes” a special property tax levy and doesn’t require or automatically certify one, Carter said, he is under no obligation to enact or collect the new levy.

Other opponents include the city’s Chamber of Commerce, which agrees that the statewide issue is best addressed at the state level and that the city should focus on its “must have” priorities, such as infrastructure maintenance and public safety.

And the St. Paul teachers union is urging a no vote, arguing that the program would be similar to vouchers that use public dollars to send kids to private schools — money they say would be better spent expanding existing public resources.

The ballot question reads: “In order to create a dedicated fund for children’s early care and education to be administered by a City department or office that provides subsidies to families and providers so that early care and education is no cost to low-income families and available on a sliding scale to other families, and so as to increase the number of child care slots and support the child care workforce, shall the City of Saint Paul be authorized to levy property taxes in the amount of $2,000,000 in the first year, to increase by the same amount each year following for the next nine years ($4,000,000 of property taxes levied in year two, $6,000,000 in year three, $8,000,000 in year four and so on until $20,000,000 of property taxes are levied in year ten)? By voting ‘yes’ on this ballot question, you are voting for a property tax increase.”

Without question, getting more developmental, educational support to the city’s littlest learners is a worthy goal. But it is questionable whether creating a new, taxpayer-supported city social service agency is the right way to get there.