Leelanau Commissioners Talk Parenting Communities Budget, Child Care Vouchers

Free car seats for all new babies in the county, better connections with local school districts, and the beginnings of a new child care voucher program: These are a few of the new priorities identified in the proposed 2026 budget for the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department (BLDHD) Parenting Communities program. That budget was a key topic of conversation last week at an executive board meeting of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners, where commissioners discussed the possibility of using innovative child care resources to draw more young families to Leelanau County.

BLDHD Director of Personal Health Michelle Klein was on hand at last Tuesday’s executive session to share the annual update on the Parenting Communities program, which is funded in large part by the Leelanau County Early Childhood Development (ECD) millage. According to Klein, Parenting Communities was serving 407 children and 331 families by the end of 2024, and had already seen those numbers increase in the first six months of 2025.

“I can share that, as of June 30, when we did our quarterly report [for 2025], we had 464 kids,” Klein told commissioners. “So, we’re continuing to connect with more and more children and families. We’re estimating there’s about 1,000 children of that age group [in our territory] that we’re targeting. We’re 46 percent now, and we want to continue to see that number go up.”

Specifically, according to a memo written by Klein and addressed to the Board of Commissioners, Parenting Communities is seeking “to reach at least 55 percent of Leelanau County children birth through age 6” by the end of 2026. “This goal reflects our ongoing commitment to expanding access and strengthening family support throughout our county,” the memo states.

To drive that growth, Parenting Communities is seeking a budget of $935,825 for 2026, up from $580,000 in 2024. More than half of that budget (62 percent) would go toward salaries and fringe benefits for 12 part-time or full-time employees.

On the staffing side, the budget calls for hiring one brand-new community health worker for Parenting Communities, as well as a part-time school district liaison to provide “a direct connection” between Parenting Communities and the schools. The latter need, Klein said, came out of recent conversations with superintendents and kindergarten teachers at local schools. Especially since the pandemic, she explained, local schools have had “a lot of concern about literacy and social-emotional development” in students entering kindergarten. A liaison will aim to determine whether Parenting Communities can do “something more substantial or impactful” to prepare young kids in the community for school.

Also new in the budget: $36,000 for a program that aims to distribute infant car seats to any pregnant woman in Leelanau County “during the last trimester of pregnancy.”

 “The goal is that every new baby will have a safe infant car seat,” Klein explained. “We can deliver that seat, we can show the parents how to install it correctly, and then at the same time, give them information about Parenting Communities, other community resources, and answer questions about [anything], whether it’s prenatal care or those first days that babies are home. It’s a great way to connect with virtually every family, which is what we’d like to do.”

One element of the budget that could grow is the $33,500 Klein has earmarked for “child care outreach vouchers.” In June, District 3 commissioner Will Bunek made a motion to “direct county administration to research and use the early childhood education millage to provide child care vouchers for children 0-6 years old,” in hopes of getting “more children involved” with Parenting Communities and using the ECD millage funds more impactfully. That millage raises approximately $728,000 each year.

As budgeted, Klein said the voucher program would be “more of an outreach activity” than a full-fledged supportive resource for families.

“Commissioner Bunek had come up with this idea, and I think it’s a really good one, to connect with families who have kids in child care in Leelanau County,” Klein said of the vouchers. “That would be just a small voucher. We don’t have the details worked out [and] it’s not a significant help, necessarily, in paying for child care expenses, but I put that in there, and it’s a great starting point.”

Both Bunek and fellow Republican commissioner Alan Campbell expressed desire to see a larger sum of money put behind a voucher program.

“I like the idea of vouchers. I like the idea of using them more extensively,” Campbell said. “I think that not only do they empower young families, but I think they are also a tool, if we’re looking at bringing young families [to Leelanau County]… I mean, no offense, but I don’t think they’re coming here for a car seat, as far as living. But if we can actually help them with their budgets, which this would be a way to do, I think it would encourage young people.”

“I guess I was a little disappointed that…instead of spending $100,000 on the vouchers, we’re going to spend it on another person to do work,” Bunek concurred. “I wanted to see [the ECD money] go out to more people and help the families with children, as opposed to having one more government worker.”

“It’s important to have the people to provide the services to the community,” Klein countered. “Even if we do something really fabulous with child care support, that’s going to take some manpower. Everything we do takes people. If we want to provide car seats to people, that takes people. If we want to really work on kindergarten readiness, which we know is an issue, it takes people. I see what you’re saying, but I think we’re not talking about bureaucratic people here; we’re talking about direct service connecting with the folks in the community.”

But Klein also said she was open to pursuing something more substantial on the voucher side, depending on how Leelanau commissioners want to spend the ECD funds.

“I would love to do more to support child care,” Klein said. “This is my take on it; you all hold this money. I know there have been a lot of discussions over of the years on what we can do legally and not do legally with millage dollars... I would love to see a little workgroup, a few people, get together, and look at what’s feasible to do. There’s a lot of logistics to doing something like that, which I’m not opposed to, but we need to know: Can we legally even go down that path? But if you guys are open to it, I would love to have a little group together to work on it.”

The Board of Commissioners will make up its mind on Parenting Communities spending during its forthcoming budgetary sessions for the 2026 fiscal year.