Mount Vernon could get a local childcare facility if a grant opportunity the City of Mount Vernon is applying for comes through.
The City of Mount Vernon, Mount Vernon School District and Cornell College are working together to apply for a matching grant to build a local childcare facility.
Such a facility is greatly needed in Mount Vernon, they feel, because the city is considered to be a daycare desert.
In addition, a survey conducted this past spring by the local League of Women Voters (LWV) showed a need for more childcare facilities in Mount Vernon, LWV member Jane Carlson reported.
The survey, which was completed in May, found just 43 percent of 72 Mount Vernon respondees are happy with their current child care, and 57 percent are not happy with it.
The city considers the project and the availability of day care services within the city to be “essential to continued economic development and job creation and retention within the city,” the grant states.
The grant the city is applying for is an Iowa Childcare Business Incentive Grant, which would provide a dollar for dollar match up to $3 million for solutions to day care in the state.
Mount Vernon’s proposal is for construction and operation of a local childcare facility within the Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Area.
The school district would build and operate the facility, including creating jobs to be employed in the facility.
The city would provide monetary support for the project through 10 years of $200,000 in annual Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Economic Development Grants to the school district—the day care provider—for a maximum of $2 million.
A Cornell College grant writer will potentially work on writing the grant proposal, which has to be submitted by the end of July.
If the grant application is successful, “the opportunities would be a huge gain for the community,” said Mount Vernon city administrator Chris Nosbisch.
If the proposal doesn’t receive funding or if the project doesn’t move forward, the city would not be obligated for the amount agreed to.