Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Abbey Carlson, lead on the Start Small Build Your Childcare Project, gives an update at the Houghton County Board’s meeting Tuesday.

HOUGHTON — Houghton County board members got an update Tuesday night on a project to cultivate in-home child care programs in the Copper Country.

In December, the board approved one year of funding for the Start Small Build Your Childcare Project. Earlier in the year, the board had earmarked $200,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds to address child care issues in the county.

Recruiting for the project began in March, said Abbey Carlson, who was hired as lead on the project.

Licensing generally takes three to six months. With the help of her team, Carlson built a Google classroom where participants are given the steps for licensing, education around professional development and skills to help them build a small business.

Of the five Google Classroom participants, four of them are in pre-licensure, meaning they’re close to opening, Carlson said. They are in South Range, Ripley, Dollar Bay and Laurium. Each will have six slots available.

“By the end of the year, we should have 24 new child care slots in in-home settings,” she said. “That’s huge for us, as we are getting calls daily from parents saying that they just can’t find child care.”

One of the participants will be going through orientation with the state on Thursday, after which licensing will walk through her home for a final inspection before approving her license. She should be open by October, Carlson said.

“They’ve let us know that without this project and the support that they’re receiving, that they likely probably would not have gone down this road, or they would have given up because of the process through licensing with the state, it’s a difficult process to navigate,” she said.

This fall, the project plans to partner with Great Start to Quality, which Carlson said would increase the connection between the new and current providers.

Carlson is also seeing growth in child care centers, which can enroll more children. One center could be opening, while another existing center is looking at expanding.

Start Small also has a grant partnership with Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance through its Small Business Support Hubs funding to help people address some of the up-front costs when opening programs in their home.

“We’re targeting child care and home-based child care as an area,” KEDA Executive Director Jeff Ratcliffe said. “It’s important. All of our employers need it. Our families need it, as we all know. It’s like the housing side. It’s difficult, but we’ve got to try to work as much as we can and as diligently as we can.”

The estimated need for child care slots is about 700, which doesn’t count the slots that are school year-only, said Keweenaw Family Resource Center Executive Director Iola Brubaker. She is working to prepare an updated number for this fall before asking for next year’s funding. Recent changes to state licensing mean programs can expand from six to seven children after a year. BHK also reopened an infant-toddler center in Dollar Bay that had closed temporarily, which helps address a need in the highest-demand age range, Brubaker said. State funding for preschool for all is aiding the situation, but only for 4-year-olds.

Those gains are partially offset by a home provider closing because of illness, and another leaving the area, Brubaker said.

“If we can get two or three centers and a dozen to two dozen in-home, we’ll start scratching that need,” and then we’ll really be able to understand where families are at,” she said.

Start Small is advertising to get more potential applicants. For more information about how to start an in-home child care business, contact Carlson at StartSmall@KFRCkids.org.

In other action, the board:

• Heard building construction numbers for the year to date from Building Inspector Todd LaRoux. The number of new commercial buildings constructed so far this year through Sept. 9 had dropped from 59 to 53. However, the total value had risen to $30,148,870, a 20.6% increase. New homes are up from 72 to 87. The $29,537,252 in residential construction cost marks a jump of 6.3%.

• Discussed upcoming sessions of a Renewable Energy Academy for local officials on Public Act 233, a recently passed law for siting large-scale wind and solar projects that takes effect in November. Local units of government with zoning authority will choose between three options: adopt no ordinance and let the Michigan Public Service Commission to site for all projects; adopt an ordinance exactly matching the state law; or adopting one with reasonable deviations from the law that could convince a developer to work with the municipality rather than the MPSC.

Commissioners disagreed with the new law, which they said was an unnecessary step over local control.

• Discussed the recent Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy compliance inspection of the county transfer station in Atlantic Mine. It was a “spotless report,” Larson said. The report found the station in compliance in all areas, and described it as “neat and tidy.”

• Approved the purchase of a used 2010 John Deere 624K tractor loader for $116,000 for the transfer station.