Gilliam Co. Court weighs childcare investment fund structure

Helping early learning centers and ensuring that quality childcare is available to people in Gilliam County is a key goal for the Gilliam County Court.

The previous Gilliam County Court created a resolution to create an investment fund for childcare centers in the county. At last week's Gilliam County Court meeting, the court discussed how this effort would be structured and what role the county should play in managing the funds.

In 2022, the Gilliam County Court began working with ROCKit, a nonprofit organization that helps with strategic planning and goal creation. The organization had helped with childcare efforts in Umatilla County, and began collaborating on a long term funding strategy for the Condon Early Learning Center, and for future childcare organizations in the county.

Waste Management dedicated 20% of their host fees to this fund, and Gilliam County pledged $1 million to get it going.

With 20% of host fees dedicated to the childcare investment fund, approximately $1 million a year would be dedicated to the endowment.

While this amount of money seems significant, Commissioner Leah Watkins said that host fee money is not being spent and that if the court wants to make childcare institutions sustainable, this was a natural starting place.

"We have $11 million of host fees that were unappropriated, money that was just sitting there," Commissioner Watkins said.

Despite some pushback from Commissioner Grant Wilkins, the court agreed that the endowment project needed to go forward, as the ordinance had passed and was in place.

The court did have differing views as to the management of the investment fund portfolio.

Commissioner Leah Watkins voiced her support for creating a separate 501c3 non-profit organization to manage the fund.

However, Judge Cris Patnode said that the county has experience in managing investment funds and worried that a non-profit could struggle to get board members and adequately manage the county's investment.

The court did not take action on the matter, and instead decided to discuss it again in the next Gilliam County Court meeting on September 18, in Arlington.