Snowmass seeks additional childcare funding from Pitkin County
The town lacks nearly $2 million for the Little Red School House renovation
The Aspen Times archives
Snowmass decided last week to ask Pitkin County for an additional $500,000 to help renovate its childcare facilities.
The town will ask for the funds to help them renovate the Little Red School House childcare center, aiming to add a new building directly to the south of the 1894 schoolhouse. The new design would have a footprint seven times the size of the existing facility and would double the childcare capacity from 30 to 60 students.
The town currently faces nearly a $2 million shortfall to begin the $8.5 million project. Snowmass plans to allot $6.5 million of its own funds toward construction and has so far secured a contribution of $208,000 from Pitkin County. But, as the county identified childcare as a critical need, Snowmass council members believe they should raise their contributions.
“We are doubling the school, and that is helping the entire county,” Snowmass Mayor Alyssa Shenk said in a council meeting last week, “so we should be asking for more.”
Earlier this year, Snowmass sought a $1 million grant from the state — the Energy/Mineral Impact Assistance Fund Grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs — but was denied the funding.
The town could also see funding from a proposed regional childcare tax to be voted on by taxpayers this November. The Confluence Early Childhood Education Coalition, a local organization fighting for improved childcare, put forward the ballot measure, a 0.25% sales tax on nonessential goods to improve funding for childcare and education of children 0 to 5.
The tax would encompass a special district, including all of Pitkin and Garfield counties, as well as the southwest corner of Eagle County — the section in the Roaring Fork School District.
Coalition Director Maggie Tiscornia told Snowmass Council earlier this month that the tax could be used to help fund childcare-related construction, such as the Little Red School House renovation. But Shenk pointed out that Little Red tax funding is contingent on the November election.
“It’s got to pass,” she told “The Aspen Times” on Tuesday. “It’s not like the money’s sitting there.”
If Snowmass manages to raise the funds, Shenk said the town hopes construction would begin sometime next year.
“But it’s hard to say,” she said. “We need partnerships, we need Pitkin County to help.”
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.
