A new child care center at Burlingame Ranch could harm the viability of existing child care providers in Pitkin County, according to a Kids First child care needs assessment released on Monday.
The proposed 94-student early childhood education center at the Burlingame affordable housing development would help meet some need for infant and toddler care in the county. But it would add too many preschool spots and potentially impact the financial viability, staffing and other operational factors of other child care providers in the area. The needs assessment found there is adequate space for preschool-aged children, but not for infants or toddlers.
“Adding additional care without efforts to preserve the care that currently exists is not going to create a net gain for the community,” said Beth Melton, a consultant who worked on the needs assessment. “In reviewing the plan for the Burlingame child care center, we believe that, the way it’s envisioned, with the addition of a significant number of preschool slots … there is some potential to harm the existing child care infrastructure by contributing to an oversupply of preschool slots.”
Last year, the Aspen City Council advanced an ordinance to build the early childhood education center at Burlingame, but did not determine next steps for the project. Kids First conducted the child care needs assessment this year, partially to determine whether the proposed education center was necessary to meet current demand.
The proposed facility would be a 15,300-square-foot licensed center with three playgrounds. It would have room for 16 infants, 20 toddlers and 58 preschoolers and require about 24 staff members, according to the final assessment presented to city council on Monday.
After conducting surveys and focus groups with families and child care providers this summer, the consultants found that Pitkin County’s licensed child care providers have slots to serve 508 children. But the true number of children that can be served is probably lower because of staffing shortages, said Sarah Hughes, a consultant who worked on the needs assessment.
In current Pitkin County child care centers, there are about 1.8 infants per licensed child care provider, 1.6 toddlers per licensed provider and about one preschooler per licensed provider.
“These quantitative numbers align really closely with what we heard from families during focus groups, where we heard a lot of struggles from people who spent time on waitlists trying to get care for their infants or toddlers, but once their child was 2 and a half — which is typically the age where they’re old enough to go into a preschool classroom — they felt like they had many more options available for them to choose from,” Hughes said.
But early childhood learning centers need preschool students enrolled to remain economically viable. It offsets the cost of providing infant or toddler care, which require more staffing, Hughes said.
The Burlingame child care center, as currently proposed, should be reevaluated, Melton and Hughes recommended. They suggested considering support for other types of care and smaller-scale centers, and ensuring the existing supply of care is supported and sustained.
The needs assessment was completed before voters from Aspen to Parachute approved a new 0.25% sales tax and the creation of a special district to support early childhood education. The new sales tax will generate $10-12 million annually and will go toward tuition subsidies, provider grants and more, and could address the child care demand in the valley in ways that are still unclear.
The city council will hold a work session in January with Kids First co-managers Megan Monaghan and Nancy Nichols to discuss next steps for Burlingame. But during the Monday work session, council members appeared to pivot from the Burlingame child care center and focus on how they can enhance support for existing providers.
“I’ve been at Burlingame, I’ve noticed a ton of kids, I see the logic of having a child care center as close to where children are as possible,” said Councilman John Doyle. “But I almost feel like we may have missed the boat because they’re already growing up.”
Earlier this year, the city council agreed to allocate more funding to Kids First to expand eligibility for families seeking early childhood education financial aid. It increased the qualifying income level for financial aid from 600% of the federal poverty level to 750%.
It also capped child care costs to a maximum of 18% of a family’s annual income. Families with the greatest needs will pay as low as 7% of their annual income.
“I’ll always be on the advocate side of this for preserving programs that we have, helping teachers, supporting retention, giving money to families and child care providers to make this more easily accessible and affordable,” Councilwoman Christine Benedetti said.
In 2022, the cost estimate for the Burlingame child care facility was $15 million.
“I do think about that Burlingame site, and there will come a time when we think about what really should happen to it … maybe it’s designed more just to be that infant toddler facility without taking away the preschool income that the other centers face and we designed out some housing for teachers in it or something like that,” Mayor Rachel Richards said. “But, I mean, there’s no use in going forward with a project where the demand is not there at this time.”
Note: Benedetti is married to Aspen Daily News publisher David Cook.