A question before St. Paul voters on the November ballot asks whether to raise property taxes annually, $2 million each year for 10 years, to fund child care subsidies for low- to moderate-income families. The proposal has split child care proponents and the city’s most progressive leaders, some of whom acknowledge that child care has become prohibitively expensive but worry that property taxes are already rising too fast and putting homeownership further out of reach for many.
Proponents have pointed to the lifelong benefits of readying young children for school through early learning efforts, which could pay back long-term dividends through a more educated workforce. Opponents note that the child care subsidy program does not include or require an educational curriculum, and the city has no strong background in early learning outside of its libraries, a field generally left to state, county and school district-backed programs like Head Start.
Alarmed at the prospect of locking the city into a 10-year financial commitment, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, city council President Mitra Jalali and the St. Paul Federation of Educators are urging a “No” vote. St. Paul School Board member Halla Henderson, chair of the “Yes for St. Paul Families” campaign, is advocating for a “Yes” vote, as are council members Rebecca Noecker, Nelsie Yang and HwaJeong Kim.
Organizations such as the St. Paul Children’s Collaborative and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation also were instrumental in supporting the St. Paul All Ready for Kindergarten — or SPARK — coalition that got the ballot question rolling.
Here are some more key details for voters:
What’s the need?
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.
Some studies have shown Minnesota to be the fourth-priciest state in the nation for child care, though the studies were focused largely on professional child care centers as opposed to home day care providers, which can run half the cost. Multiple studies have found that participants in early learning programs like Head Start are more likely to graduate high school, attend college and receive a post-secondary degree, license or certification than their peers.
Organizers of St. Paul’s early childhood initiative say existing early learning programs are often overenrolled, leading to long waiting lists. By third grade, when students take their first standardized tests, stark achievement gaps are evident in St. Paul Public Schools, where about 26% of all students scored proficient in math, 34% were proficient in reading and 25% in science, according to Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment results for 2024.
Race and income factor heavily in the results. Statewide, testing shows white students are about twice as likely to be proficient in math and reading than Black, Latin and American Indian students. Test scores have yet to fully recover from the downturn they took during the pandemic.
What’s the ballot proposal in a nutshell?
Through their property taxes, St. Paul property owners would fund monthly grant subsidies for families and child care providers, supplementing existing state funding so more kids up to age 4 can attend an early learning or child care program for free for those most in need, or on a sliding scale for others.
The goal is to start with 154 infants in the first year and gradually expand to older kids living at or below 185% of the federal poverty level, which is currently about $58,000 for a family of four. Organizers say more than 10,500 kids — or more than half of St. Paul kids under age 5 — live at or below that level. Families earning more could be eligible for sliding-scale support as the program matures.
The grants would range from $3,000 to $8,000 per child, which would be layered on top of any other form of public assistance, such as the state’s early learning scholarships. Funding at first would follow the child to approved providers, but it could also be used to open up seats down the line within contracted providers, including the school district.
Eligibility would be weighed by 10 factors, with family income at the top of the list, while also considering children in child protection and foster care, children who are unhoused and children of incarcerated parents, among other criteria.
A city office such as the Office of Financial Empowerment would administer the child care grants, and an online “Find Child Care” portal would help families citywide, at all income levels, look for child care. The special property tax levy would start at $2 million in the first year, $4 million in the second year, $6 million in the third and so forth, topping out at $20 million in the 10th and final year of the program unless it’s reauthorized by voters.
How many kids would receive free care?
In April, a report prepared by consultants with MetrixIQ and Emmy Liss Strategies found that based on funding and pricing assumptions, the project would serve more than 2,500 children annually by year 10, or between 4,000 and 7,000 kids over the course of the decade.
It would take a while to ramp up, as the first three years of the program would be considered a pilot or startup phase.
By the end of 10 years, the program is expected to reach most St. Paul preschoolers in need but only about a third of infants and toddlers in families living within 185% of the federal poverty level. Additional state, county or philanthropic dollars could expand the program, though rising costs could also take a bite out.
The mayor’s office has estimated that to fully benefit all kids in need, the program budget would have to increase more than six-fold, to $121 million. The St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce also has predicted that to truly make a dent, the program would require a much larger budget than what’s been proposed.
What child care programs would be eligible for subsidies?
Any licensed or “legal non-licensed” provider that signs a basic agreement with the St. Paul Early Childhood Initiative would be eligible to receive funds to provide care. In the first several years, the initiative would not contract for slots or guarantee funding to any particular provider, though that could change with time.
Legal non-licensed providers include family, friends or neighbors who are registered as providers and care for children that do not live in the same household, as well as providers that serve only one family.
I’ve heard this called an early learning effort. Would an educational curriculum be required?
Short answer: No. Providers would be expected to sign an agreement that sets minimal requirements for them to receive funding, including meeting basic health and safety standards and keeping enrollment and financial information up to date. Otherwise, there would be no programmatic requirements beyond licensing, though the city could introduce more standards at a later date.
Organizers had once debated requiring child care providers to meet standards laid out by a rating agency such as Parent Aware, but they now say that would rule out many home day cares and providers operating in different cultures and languages, undermining the goal of making child care more accessible citywide.
Who would administer this program?
A 48-page program overview presented to the St. Paul City Council last month by consultants People of Victory LLC recommended that the city’s Office of Financial Empowerment oversee the initiative. Consultants and a citizen advisory council could help launch the program until its administration is absorbed by new city staff around years four and five.
New city positions would include a program manager, customer service coordinator, program evaluator, financial analyst and translator. An advisory board consisting of 21 members would help monitor and advise implementation.
The mayor’s office has noted that a $20 million budget in year 10 would be roughly on par with the size of the city’s library system, and unlikely to be managed effectively by just four or five staffers and a contractor or two.
Other critics have said St. Paul lacks the staffing infrastructure for social services, which are generally overseen by the county, and the city already lacks sufficient inspectors to enforce rent control, paid sick leave, a $15 minimum wage and hiring requirements St. Paul imposes on contractors bidding for public construction projects. Given recent financial fraud scandals over state-backed social services such as Feeding Our Future, some worry that a lot more money may need to be spent on administration and inspections to ensure a successful initiative.
What would this cost me?
The costs are folded into property taxes citywide, so it’s difficult to answer that question precisely. Organizers have estimated that a median-value St. Paul home — carrying an estimated market value of about $275,000 — would pay an extra $16 in the first year of implementation, then $32 the next year, and so on, until reaching $160 in year 10.
That said, property taxes vary widely by neighborhood and property type. Critics worry that as downtown property values fall in the era of remote work and online retail, the rest of St. Paul will absorb more of the cost of running the city, from paving streets to paying police, firefighters and other public employees. Shifting tax burdens could upend some estimates.
Then again, if parents who had previously been unable to work because of child care needs are able to find jobs or launch their own businesses, that could lead to more economic growth in the city, and less reliance on public assistance.
Does the initiative fund recruitment and training of child care workers?
Not at first. Existing child care centers have said their biggest challenge is finding and holding onto employees who won’t jump ship to Target or another employer that pays just as much without the hassle and liability of handling young children.
The early childhood initiative focuses on subsidies for child care payments, which could in theory help providers raise wages and attract workers. That said, the initiative is not designed to fund recruitment, training or other labor needs in its early years. That could change later on, but details have yet to be fleshed out.
In the past year or so, the state has launched its own efforts to boost pay and benefits for child care workers through the new Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program, which issues monthly payments to eligible child care providers.
Doesn’t the state already do a lot of this work and fund Head Start?
Some critics have called the child care initiative redundant, noting the state already funds early learning scholarships, the Child Care Assistance Program, and Head Start and Early Head Start programs, as well as the state’s new Great Start Compensation grants to boost pay for child care workers. In addition, the St. Paul school district expanded pre-kindergarten to 4-year-olds about two years ago.
Organizers say those programs fill up quickly, and the child care initiative on the ballot looks to fund a wider variety of care, including home day care, for kids as young as newborns. Statewide, there’s been a rash of child care facility closures, and the hope is that the subsidies could help more of them launch or stay afloat. St. Paul schools do not offer care for kids under age 4.
What else are critics saying?
Some low- to moderate-income homeowners say if the city doesn’t find a way to rein in property taxes, they’ll lose their homes. And rather than facilitating child care, putting home ownership out of reach for first-time homebuyers and new immigrants could make launching home day cares even harder.
Stacking extra property taxes on apartment buildings would seemingly undermine the point of rent control, which was intended to keep rents affordable. The initial rollout of rent control was cumbersome and chaotic in the eyes of critics and proponents alike, given that it was driven by a ballot question and not developed from the ground up within City Hall, and some fear similar stumbling points with the child care initiative. Organizers say they’ve taken care to present as much detailed information as possible to the city council in advance of the November vote.
The St. Paul teachers union has compared the effort to voucher programs that use public dollars to send kids to private schools — money they say would be better spent expanding existing public resources.
What else are proponents saying?
There’s a strong racial element to child care challenges, which prevent many parents of color from looking for full-time work.
Organizers note New Orleans, Cincinnati and San Antonio voters have approved similar early learning efforts, and cities or school districts like Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago have made strides toward universal pre-kindergarten for kids as young as 3 or 4 years old.
In 2012, San Antonio voters approved using a city sales tax to fund early learning. When reauthorization returned to the ballot in November 2020, 73% percent of San Antonio voters voted yes.
How is the question worded on the ballot?
Ballot question language: “Should the city levy taxes to provide early learning subsidies?
“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.”
