The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners, with a 6-1 vote, approved the language for an Early Childhood Services program millage renewal proposal at their Tuesday evening regular session. The issue will appear on the Aug. 6 primary election ballot. Commissioner Melinda Lautner was the sole “no” vote.
If this proposal is passed by Leelanau County voters in August, the millage will fund the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department’s early childhood services in the county for another five years from 2025 to 2029. The current millage expires in December.
The millage was first passed in 2019 at the rate of up to 0.2530 mills, or about $0.25 per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value, as determined by the county’s equalization department. The proposal calls for a restoration of this millage, which was reduced to 0.2458 mills in 2023 by the Headlee Amendment rollbacks.
According to the millage proposal presented to the county board on March 12, if this millage is levied in full, it will raise an estimated $913,128 in 2025. County board chairman Ty Wessell said that the actual rate the board would approve next year could be much less.
“Before we approve the allocated amount next spring, we will look at surplus in the budget, and we will determine, as we did last year, that we don’t need to collect anywhere near the full amount,” Wessell said.
Last year, the county board only levied enough tax dollars to cover the $671,488 budget of the program, which was a 0.1861 levy out of a maximum allowable 0.2458 mills. However – if property value remains constant – the levy could be somewhere in the middle by the end of this five-year period.
According to a letter to the county commissioners from health department Director of Personal Health Michelle Klein, the program’s budget may increase by 5% each year “to offset increased costs for personnel and continued growth in the number of families we serve” up to just over $800,000 by 2029.
Klein’s letter also says the Early Childhood Services program impacted 377 children between the ages of birth to six years old in 212 families in Leelanau County last year. This means the program met its goal of getting at least 350 children to participate in at least one Parenting Communities opportunity by the end of the year.
Early Childhood Services provided by the joint district health department in 2023 included 170 playgroups, each facilitated by certified community health workers; monthly “Families Together” gatherings exploring early childhood development and parenting; home visits; and community events including a harvest festival, holiday gathering, a Grandparent’s Day brunch, and a family street fair.
The Early Childhood millage passed by a narrow margin in 2019 and it remains to be seen whether the Parenting Communities program can garner enough support for another five years.
“The general rule is not that anybody’s opposed to the actual work that’s being done – it’s whether it’s appropriate to ask for tax dollars to do that. That’s really where the opposition is,” Klein said.
To Klein, the program offers an excellent “return on investment,” with every dollar invested in children from birth to six years old saving $4-16 in special education services, district court intervention, health care programs, and economic support down the line.
Klein said that she bases these claims on successful evidence- based programs that already exist, like Parents as Teachers, the Strengthening Families and the Protective Factors Framework, the Nurse-Family Partnership, and Healthy Families America. The connection between early childhood programs and later success in particular is based on the Heckman Curve, she said.
One criticism of the program is that Leelanau County has a statistically older population than most of the country. According to recent U.S. Census Bureau data, the county has one of the highest median ages in the country at 54.6, compared to the national median age of 38.2.
“It’s not like we don’t have kids and young families just because we have a lot of seniors,” Klein said. “We support our seniors, but we also have a lot of young families and young kids. And frankly, our kids are struggling. The kids are getting into schools and their readiness to learn, behavior issues and mental health issues, social/emotional development, and literacy are not where they should be.”
“These are the things that we can start addressing when these kids are born and through those first few years of life. It’s great work that pays off in the long run,” Klein continued.
According to a 2019 survey by Urban Institute, nearly a quarter of people who qualify for social services do not receive them. Klein said that Parenting Communities wants every family in the community to know who they are – even families without young children – so the right people can take advantage of their services.
Klein said they’ve found that the best way to reach their demographic is “plaster(ing) the town” with flyers and newsletters, which they distribute at local daycares, libraries, and grocery stores, and through their social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram. She also said health department staff work with community partners like the Grand Traverse Band and Early Head Start, as well as visit local schools.
