GOLDENDALE — The Klickitat County Board of Commissioners held a workshop on reducing barriers and improving access to local, affordable child care during its regular morning session on July 15.
Primarily intended to bring commissioners up to speed and inform future conversations, Johanna Roe, project coordinator for the Klickitat County Childcare Committee (KCCC), kicked the workshop off by unpacking a feasibility study the committee completed in 2021. Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families puts the total number of licensed child care providers in the county at 13, and KCCC helped open five of those locations, but it’s far from enough.
According to federal survey data, 1,046 children aged 0-5 lived in Klickitat in 2023, but today, there are only about 178 slots at licensed providers, Roe estimated. Based on the feasibility study, the average family in Klickitat pays 22% of their income for one child in child care and up to 44% for two children. The Washington State Department of Commerce notes child care should cost no more than 7% of a family’s income.
“Families who are just earning minimum wage have a really hard time paying for some of the child care that’s out there,” said Roe. “Now, the high cost is also attributable to the expenses that are needed to start a child care, so one goes hand in hand with the other.”
Those expenses include fees associated with licensing and permitting, operational costs and real estate, which Roe emphasized is increasingly hard to come by. Instead of paying out of pocket, parents often rely on a patchwork of relatives and friends to look after their children, according to the study.
Roe and others during public comment pushed the idea of child care as economic infrastructure, as a smart, necessary investment with several benefits that don’t arrive instantly, but rather come further down the line.
“It connects every part of a functioning community,” said Roe. “Good quality child care reduces the cost of law enforcement, mental health issues and social services — fewer people on unemployment, fewer people dealing with trauma and needing resilience skills.” child care also plays a critical role in maintaining a reliable workforce.
“child care is housing growth and development, and a county that is enriched long term by families who stay. child care is disposable income that lifts local businesses and county economics. child care is worker training, retention, growth and institutional knowledge,” said White Salmon resident Gabrielle Gilbert. “child care should be built locally to keep our dollars local and build our local economy.”
Commissioners asked Roe a few questions and expressed concern over potential losses to capacity in the coming months. Notably, White Salmon Valley School District Superintendent Rich Polkinghorn reported the federal government has frozen nearly $600,000 dedicated to after-school programming that serves around 125 students (see related story on A1).
Jennifer Pauletto, the executive director of Washington Gorge Action Programs, warned that the organization’s Youth Center in White Salmon, which operates all day during the summer and transitions to after school hours when class is in session, won’t be able to fill that hole if federal money doesn’t come through.
The meeting finished with Gilbert encouraging commissioners to address child care during the 2026 budget process and holding a workshop on the topic quarterly.
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