City Government Could Launch a Daycare

Milwaukee City Hall. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Pensions, good healthcare, rising salaries. The City of Milwaukee could soon offer another benefit to employees: childcare.

A proposal, championed by Alderman Jonathan Brostoff, would see the city add a childcare facility to the City Hall complex.

“We have had a lot of issues with retaining and recruiting staff at the city,” said Brostoff when the Finance & Personnel Committee reviewed the proposal Wednesday.

Department of Employee Relations (DER) officials are evaluating options, including how much to charge and what employees are eligible. Brostoff said he hoped income was a consideration in pricing.

“This is going to be great, and we’re going to get it done,” said Brostoff. But the self-described “honey badger” alderman will need to dig deep, perhaps literally.

A DER report suggests a likely location for a childcare program is the recently-renovated basement of City Hall, where a tunnel network connects it to the neighboring 809 Broadway building and Zeidler Municipal Building. The approximately 3,000-square-foot space would yield space for 40 to 60 children. The space is currently vacant.

“If we are to do this, we will be one of the first adopters of the childcare program,” said employee benefits director Molly King. “We have spent many hours trying to deliberate what this would look like.”

It could be up and running by 2026. But decisions would need to be made about whether it’s staffed by city employees or a private contractor, its total capacity and whether a partnership with a nearby private employer could reduce costs. The city, said King, could also offer non-subsidized care to the public or locate the facility in a different downtown building.

Annual staffing costs to operate the facility, based on preliminary estimates, could range from $200,000 to $2.6 million. A wide range, with several sublevels within, was given based on three different price points and assumptions based on the age of children. An average hourly wage of $22 would be paid to workers.

“If we do this, we would want to provide five-star, high-quality childcare,” she said. “We want to be an employer of choice. We want people to choose us.”

The city isn’t likely to have trouble finding customers, given the many current employees who have children. There are approximately 1,200 children under the age of seven currently insured through the city health insurance plan.

The report suggests the proposed program could have an additional benefit for private employers: it could free up other downtown childcare slots. If public employees shifted to the city facility, private providers would be able to better serve other private employers. Conversely, if the city opted to go with an off-site, private partner it could actually make what has been described as a downtown “childcare desert” worse by occupying slots that are currently used by others.

King said there are approximately five childcare facilities in the central business district.

Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs said she remembers Milwaukee County operating a daycare with the courthouse and encouraged King to connect with the county. King said UW-Milwaukee and Milwaukee Area Technical College also have childcare facilities. “I like that you are all digging further into this area,” said Coggs, who noted she previously pursued the idea.

The latest proposal is sponsored by Brostoff, Marina Dimitrijevic, Sharlen P. Moore, DiAndre Jackson, Peter Burgelis and Coggs.

“This level of attention is exactly how we want to make the best policy decisions,” said Dimitrijevic. “To me, this just builds off the work we have done on paid parental leave.”

“We have a lot of work to do and a lot of research to do,” said Brostoff. He estimated DER would return with a more thorough report in the coming months.

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Related Legislation: File 232045