Shortfall for childcare not addressed in special session

0:00Hello everyone, you are listening to Afternoons Live. This is Carla Rose Hanson in for Tyler Axness, and we are talking about the North Dakota Legislature's special session that happened last week. We dealt with a number of issues, and one of them was bailout. Some might call it for the Military Museum Project, and I have a guest with us today to help us explore that a little more. It's representative Alisa Mitzkog. She's from District 25, which is primarily Richland County, just south of us. Alisa, welcome to the show. Thanks Carla. It's great to be with you today. So you and I both served on the Joint Appropriations Committee during the special session, and we heard a bill for the Military Museum. Some might call it a bailout. I or listeners might not know, but during the 25 legislative session, we authorized the museum to go forward with the idea was half of the expenses would come from the state and half of the cost would be covered by private donations.

1:16And they broke ground on the Military Museum, which is right near the capital last summer, and they started to proceed on that. But then the private donations weren't really keeping up with the hopes and expectations. And so the state had to come in and kind of step in a little bit. Can you explain a little bit about what we ended up doing to sort of save the day on the Military Museum? Yeah, thank you. It was a very difficult vote. You know, I think North Dakota, we we support our veterans. This was a really beautiful, great plan. But I think when we step back and kind of review where we were at. I mean, there was certainly a major issue regarding accountability. And I think maybe lack of oversight and I think we can learn from situations like this, but in my opinion, and others, I think we were the project was too far along to it wasn't just a hole on the ground.

2:29I think that we really could turn our backs on abandoning the project. So, you know, I think there could be a lot of finger pointing going on and I don't know how productive that would be. But I think what came out. And I think that the project moving forward with some safeguards and and certainly we will work expecting accountability and transparency and I think the lack of fundraising that occurred is very concerning. I think those agreements are being reviewed and those that are tasked with that took away a message that things need to be stepped up. This is serious. This is taxpayer money. And, you know, I think in the end, you know, we, we short up the project. And I certainly have expectations that private fundraising needs to continue, but, you know, we approved a $20 million bank of North Dakota line of credit or construction loan.

3:33And then remove some of the restrictions on the state funding that have probably previously been approved. And, you know, we have expectations that the line of credit will be paid back to private donations. And I did ask the question, I want, I want updated progress and we need to have updates this cannot go away. Oh, this to the taxpayers and. My, my two cents on this or what happened and I'm sure, Carly, you, you had other thoughts. I know that there was an alternative for a smaller appropriation just to shore up the building, rip it and tighten it up and just let it fit until the session. We heard, you know, from contractors that were owed money and, you know, H back and I just, I support this to move forward. But again, I want accountability.

4:36Yeah, I think you described the different concerns exactly right. I mean, people, there was a lot of finger pointing going on with whose fault it was and why this moved forward without the money in hand and the lack of fundraising. So even though what we pass doesn't have any guarantees that these mistakes won't be repeated, I, I think everyone involved with project knows that all the eyes are on them. So they hopefully will move forward with with a good plan going forward. And, and like you said, we support our veterans. It will be a beautiful space and a beautiful exhibit once it's done. So it'll be, it'll be beautiful. But we also want to make sure that we have accountability for both the taxpayers as well as the veterans who are being honored. And we did ask questions about removing some of the things to maybe make it more bare bones and, you know, do we really need everything that's in there and to try to scale down and scale back the, the scope of the project.

5:43And I think those discussions will continue. I mean, that I think it will be an evolving discussion and. Yeah, it will be a beautiful facility and enhancement of the North Dakota State Capitol ground. Yes. So, Alisa, another, another topic that the dem NPL was hoping to discuss during the legislative session was about child care. There are, there's a program in North Dakota that provides child care assistance to families who struggle to pay for it. This is an existing program. And there's nearly 2000 families on a waiting list right now because it seemed like we, we as a state had vastly underestimated the number of people who, who need this help. And of course, you know, it's an urgent issue. People who can afford child care can't go to work and, and we have a lot of open jobs in North Dakota. So, so Democrats last week brought forward a bipartisan plan to help provide a little bit more funding to this existing program to provide relief to these families who are struggling to pay for child care.

7:03But Republicans blocked it from even being able to have a public hearing. So, I know during the regular legislative session, you sit on the budget committee that works with the human services budget. So, you're probably familiar with this program. Can you tell us a little bit more about, first of all, why there was a waiting list, what, what was the situation that we were in? Yeah, I, it's extremely concerning five six years ago from employers and families. This is a workforce issue. We have some of the lowest unemployment in the United States. So, we need to compete for employees, either from, you know, North Dakota residents or from people considering moving to our state and North Dakota is, it's unique. We're growing, we're now growing at the lower end for a long time. We were, you know, we were had disproportionate number of older individuals like myself. But now we have a lot of families, which is great for our future. But with that, you know, the whole issue of affordability, which, there's a lot as state lawmakers that we can't, we can affect property taxes.

8:24A lot of affordability issues are at the federal level, but child care, we have the opportunity. This is a state program. And we expanded it in the previous administration administration. And we responded to what we heard from employers and families that we needed to invest in child care. We needed to grow slots, you know, child care. Because oftentimes, it can be more afforded, more expensive than college tuition, a year of college tuition, and depend on where you live. I mean, it can be for, for infant child care, up to $1,000 or greater per month per child for one child. This is a significant issue facing North Dakota and and not only at the lower socioeconomic worker, but even middle class families. I mean, I heard from families that had good, good jobs that they were having discussions about whether or not they should, one parent should, they both should stay in the workforce.

9:35So with that, we grew child care. And, you know, and some of that was federal money, we used some COVID money and, and we grew, who qualified for child care payments, right or wrong. More people were allowed some benefits to help with child care. But unfortunately, that money ran out and what we saw last last year ago, we started seeing people on the waiting list, you know, so right now we're up to almost 2000 families that are on the child care assistance waiting list. And what the proposal that we had brought forward Senator Hogan was the prime sponsor on that, but was just to, to, to show up the very lowest working individuals or families that would need assistance with a $9 million dollar ask and it was.

10:35It would, it would, I think it would have gone a long way. It would have made it made it made a difference. It would have, you know, I think something message that we're listening to families, workers and child care providers that now, I mean, they're, they're cutting slots. The real losing providers were losing slots. And I just, this is going to turn into a crisis. And, and now we're kicking the can down the road until the next legislative session. And I am very worried about this issue. Yeah, I definitely share concern with that, but I know we will be back in January and we'll keep listening and we'll keep raising this concern. So, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your perspective on, you know, how we handled some of these issues at the special session last week. And we're going to take a break now and get some news. So thanks again.