Salt Lake County proposes summer camps as families brace for closure of county day cares

Salt Lake County is preparing to close its child care centers at the end of May potentially widening the gap for access to child care services among low-income families, but some extra services may become available during the summer.

Some of the options staffers highlighted to the Salt Lake County Council this week were county-sponsored summer camp expansions starting this year while kids are out of school. One would be a licensed summer camp, led by people with early childhood education or child development credentials. And another, a recreation summer camp, would be run by the county’s recreation professionals.

If approved, they would be available for children from 5 to 12 years old and their families would have to pay $141 in tuition per week.

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The council didn’t need to approve the programs since there wasn’t a budgetary request.

“This ensures 100% self-sufficiency while placing no additional burden upon property taxpayers,” River August, assistant associate director of recreation at the county, said in a presentation to the council on Tuesday.

That was an essential point to make after the Republican-majority Salt Lake County Council voted 5-4 last October to end the $2 million annual subsidy that maintained four centers, mostly located on the west side of Salt Lake County. Council members sponsoring the measure argued that it wasn’t the county’s role to provide day care and that the programs weren’t equitable.

Families of the 270 kids that used the services each year said they felt blindsided by the decision and had deep concerns about being able to afford child care going forward.  

The county surveyed those families and found that the “affordability gap is complex,” according to a presentation to the council. About 50% of the families that responded don’t qualify for subsidies, yet cost is a major barrier for them.

Also, 80% of them don’t have child care arrangements for the summer, and cost and quality of care are their top constraints, they said, as well as scheduling misalignment.

“I know that to the families that are losing their day care options, that this is not an entire solution,” Council member Jiro Johnson, a Democrat, said. “But as the surveys were put out and have made very clear, there’s a strong need for summer child care programming for a lot of people throughout this county, and this is a very strong step.”

The enhanced summer programs are expected to lower the eligibility age to 5 years old, securing continuous care five days a week, and expanding some schedules from four to eight hours. 

The licensed program is planned for the Redwood Recreation Center in West Valley City and Midvale’s Copperview Recreation Center. The camp would allow the county to offer care for eight hours per day, five days a week, throughout the whole summer. 

Recreational programs, which would be available at recreation centers in Sandy, Holladay, Herriman, West Jordan, South Jordan and Taylorsville, would also be child care options for eight hours a day, five days a week in spans of six weeks. The county is expected to have staggered start dates to allow families to sign up at different locations for full summertime care.

Another option the county may offer is a county-operated youth services program, which already exists in partnership with Granite School District in six schools in Magna, Kearns and West Valley City, all municipalities the county has identified as high need areas.

That’s a five- to six-week program that would offer care four days a week, six hours a day, providing enrichment programs to advance academic development, according to the presentation. The program is grant funded, so it doesn’t require tuition payments. 

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