For every situation where parents can use help, making it to appointments, enriching and educating their young children, and generally making a household work, there are potential solutions to the childcare problem.

Before and after school care, expanded Pre-K, home-based providers, on-site employer provided childcare, a cash benefit, a tax-credit.

Every employer and every employee has different situations, situations that can be met with a solution that can work to help make St. Joseph work for working people.

Waiting for the federal or state government to solve the problem of providing affordable childcare has not worked. Focusing on local and incremental solutions, we can make progress and make St. Joseph a great place to raise a family.

Ensuring that the City of St. Joseph is a model employer regarding childcare benefits is one incremental, local solution I strongly believe in. Providing greater childcare benefits for our first responders is a first step toward that goal.