Millages for county services are up for renewal in August, including the historically controversial Early Childhood Services program administered by the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department.
The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners heard a presentation on the program Tuesday and will decide whether to place the millage renewal proposal on the ballot at their March 19 meeting, Tuesday night.
The joint county health department Director of Personal Health Michelle Klein attended the meeting to present the Parenting Communities annual report. Parenting Communities was established in Leelanau County in the 1990s, and since 2019, it has been funded through the Early Childhood millage.
Klein said that the 2024 budget for Planning Communities is $671,488. County Administrator Deb Allen said the millage renewal rate on the August ballot will be determined by this amount and the total taxable value of all properties. Last year, a 0.1861 levy was enough to cover the Early Childhood program costs.
To Klein, the program presents a great “return on investment” to the county. By supporting Parenting Communities programs, she says, elected officials and county residents can expect a reduced need for special education services, district court intervention, health care programs, and economic support.
“Your return on investment is $4-16 for every dollar that we invest, so it’s pretty robust,” Klein said. “This return that we’re seeing … is coming in things like less need for special ed when kids are in school, more academic success, less substance use, lesser involvement with the court systems down the road. As these kids grow up, they’re more economically self-sufficient … The supports this early education program has lifelong benefi ts.” Klein said that these dollar amounts are based on research projections, as the Early Childhood program hasn’t been active long enough to observe such results in Leelanau County.
“Ten years from now, we’ll be able to look specifically more at Leelanau County, but we have a lot of research behind that return on investment that really justifies the work that we’re doing,” Klein said.
When it came time for the program’s millage renewal last year, Commissioner Melinda Lautner raised concerns that people from outside the county were attending Parenting Communities events on Leelanau County taxpayers’ dollars. When she raised this issue again Tuesday, Klein responded that the programs now have online registration where attendees need to enter their addresses to show that they’re from the county.
Perhaps anticipating more criticism of the program — which has often come under fire for supporting children in a county with one of the highest median ages in the country – Commissioner Jamie Kramer launched an impassioned defense of the program. She said she feels strongly on the issue as a mother of a 2-year-old.
“As adults, what are we doing here if we’re not spending money on our children?” Kramer asked. “What are we all doing at this table if we are not looking for the next generation? Because that’s why we’re making these choices – that’s why we’re making these decisions. And so, I look at a half-milliondollar expenditure, and I’m saying that’s not much, if we’re going to invest in our children.”
“We’re all going to die in a few decades, and that’s what we have, so let’s invest, and let’s not be stingy about how we’re investing in our next generation,” Kramer continued. “We’re all siloed in our own spaces, and it is terribly difficult to be a parent alone, and you’re providing something that we’d have in a normal community if we lived in an egalitarian society.”
Later in the meeting, Commissioner Doug Rexroat said that while he didn’t disagree with Kramer’s comments, he feels that the board’s duties include prioritizing, and “these are difficult decisions and we have only so much money to allocate.”
The Early Childhood program was initially funded with a 0.253mill property tax levy for 2020, which was not fully spent because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was lowered to 0.21111 mills in the 2022 budget, and again to 0.1861 mills in September 2023.
According to a letter by Klein addressed to the county commissioners requesting the millage renewal, Early Childhood programming impacted 377 children between the ages of birth to six years in 212 families.
