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Hennepin County pilot proposed to expand childcare for law‑enforcement and first responders
Summary
Representative Katizia Wootun and Hennepin County Sheriff DeWanna Witt described a proposal to pilot law‑enforcement‑specific childcare in Hennepin County, modeled after a San Diego program, to address recruitment and retention challenges for shift workers.
A proposal presented informally to the House Workforce, Labor and Economic Development Finance and Policy Committee would pilot childcare targeted to law‑enforcement and first‑responder families in Hennepin County.
Representative Katizia Wootun introduced the concept as a pilot to test program design and outcomes before wider rollout. Sheriff DeWanna Witt of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office said the county employs roughly 900 people whose long or unpredictable shifts make finding regular childcare difficult and that childcare is “a leading reason women leave or never enter law enforcement.”
Witt described a San Diego model she visited, where a law‑enforcement‑specific childcare center opened in 2024 and serves about 50 children of deputies. She said the Hennepin pilot would recruit a cohort of providers to serve sheriff’s office employees, leveraging Women Venture for recruitment, training and coordination.
Sheriff Witt and Representative Wootun framed the pilot as a workforce retention and recruitment measure: Witt said recruiting an officer can cost more than $100,000 on average and that affordable, convenient childcare could reduce turnover among sworn officers, corrections, telecommunicators and civilian staff.
Committee members asked whether local government partners (Hennepin County board) would participate; Witt said she had not yet brought the proposal to the county board and that the model could be adapted to nearby counties and agencies. Chairs and members discussed the merits of piloting in one county before considering multi‑county or statewide approaches.
The hearing treated the measure as informational; committee members said the idea merits further work and suggested exploring shared pilots with other counties and funding sources.
