‘We all know the problem’: Governor holds child care roundtable at Nicolet

Having declared 2025 “The Year of the Kid” in his State of the State address, Gov. Tony Evers visited Nicolet College in Rhinelander on March 25 for a community roundtable on child care.
Evers started the discussion by noting that there’s little disagreement as to the problem — the high cost of child care is forcing people out of the workforce, as it’s often more cost-effective for one parent to stay at home.
At the same time, it’s also increasingly difficult to find people interested in pursuing a career in early childhood education or who want to operate child care centers, he said.
The governor’s solution is to make the Child Care Counts program, created during the COVID-19 pandemic and scheduled to end in June, permanent. The cost: $480 million.
Previous efforts to secure support from the state legislature to make the program permanent have been unsuccessful but Evers continues to hold out hope that common ground can be found.

“I think it’s a good proposal,” he said, referring to the $480 million investment he has put forward. “We can afford it and we’re going to need it. It’s going to impact our economy (if Child Care Counts ends). If they (state lawmakers) have a better idea, let’s have it.”
According to the governor’s office, Child Care Counts supports the child care industry by helping child care providers increase wages, provide benefits, and expand access to care for families. To date, the program has helped over 5,300 child care providers keep their doors open, ensuring the employment of over 64,500 child care professionals and allowing providers to continue care for more than 364,000 kids, according to a press release issued by the governor’s office.
The roundtable included a young couple in the process of opening a child care center and a woman who serves as program director of a center in the Lakeland area.
Trista Ecklund, program director of Oaktree Early Learning Center in Arbor Vitae, said rates will increase if Child Care Counts funding ends.
“I know directly how it will impact our facility,” she said. “We would have to be looking at raising our rates around $5 to $7 a kid per week in order to compensate for our staff wages.”
Cheryl Seefeldt of Superior Diesel spoke to the impact limited access to affordable child care has had on employee recruitment and retention.
“Two years ago we had six babies born that year,” she said. “It was exciting but they were on the (daycare) waitlists and it caused challenges. I don’t know how long your (wait) lists are but it’s a struggle,” she added, noting that the loss of employees to stay-at-home childcare resulted in “bottlenecks.”
Evers ended the session by noting that ensuring access to affordable childcare remains a “top priority” for his administration.
“We have to do something about child care because it impacts every other facet of life,” he said.