Alack of child care slots and locations exists in Garden City and the wider Finney County area. Lona DuVall, president/CEO of the Finney County Economic Development Corporation, said the lack of child care in the area was noticed by the FCEDC as early as 2012. The problem has since gotten worse, DuVall said. In 2012 there was a shortage of about 485 child care slots, by 2018 shortage had more than doubled to about 1,850 slots. DuVall said they knew there was a shortage, but nobody did anything, FCEDC didn’t even get involved until the lack of child care started affecting employers, who were having a hard time recruiting and retaining staff because of the lack of reliable and accessible child care. A perfect storm caused the shortage, DuVall said. It started with population growth, economic growth and an increase in demand for qualified workforce but the biggest factor was a change in state regulations.
Source: GC Telegram.
