Parents, community members voice anger, frustration at county’s decision to close public daycare centers

Child care services at the Northwest Community Center in Fairpark will close on May 31, 2026 if the Salt Lake County Council follows through on plans to close four county-run daycare centers as part of its 2026 budget. Photo by Andy Cupp.

Editor’s note: On December 9th, the council formally voted to adopt the new budget, officially bringing an end to the county-run daycare program. The four centers, including the Westside location at the Northwest Community Center, will close on May 31, 2026.

“Your privilege is showing. We can all feel it!” Leslie Patino shouted as she left a public comment portion of the Salt Lake County Council meeting on Tuesday, November 4th. A daycare teacher at Northwest Recreation Center and resident of West Valley, Patino was one of dozens of parents, staff, elected officials, and concerned community members who packed the council chambers that day.

The large turnout was in response to the council’s 5-4 Republican party-line decision the week before to abruptly close four county-run daycares in Kearns, Magna, Salt Lake’s Fairpark neighborhood, and Millcreek by December 31, 2025. Roughly 250 to 300 families will be directly impacted by the closure.

The agenda item that day read, “Discussion on Child Care in Salt Lake County by Subject Matter Experts” with two council members Aimee Winder Newton (R) and Laurie Stringham (R) listed as the presenters. (Besides being a county council member, Winder Newton also serves as a Senior Advisor to Governor Spencer Cox and is the Director of the Office of Families within the state.)  Since there was no indication that the council would take a vote to shut down all the county daycare centers at the original meeting, no one showed up to speak against it that day.

The Council had commissioned the Pathway Group to conduct a multi-faceted study about the operational and financial viability of the four daycare centers, which was presented at the original meeting. Pathway found that the subsidized daycare centers could not financially sustain themselves as-is. Pathway admitted that they were unable to assess families’ income levels due to lack of data; however, the report found that “of the 23 schools currently served by Salt Lake County childcare centers, nine are designated as Title I, underscoring the importance of these programs in supporting lower-income communities.” While the Pathway Group recommended several suggestions to improve financial viability — including strategic partnerships and a tiered approach to raising prices over time — they never recommended closing any of the daycares.

Once news broke of the impending closures, the outrage was swift. Through tears, terse voices, and angry emotion, many parents testified at the next council meeting for over an hour that they had been on waitlists for months or even years for daycare placement and that they wouldn’t be able to afford private daycare prices, especially for those on a single income.

Many parents also spoke about how these daycares provide essential transportation for their children, something not as readily available for younger children. Parents who can’t leave their jobs multiple times during the workday to transport their kids from daycare to school — and vice versa — said they relied on this transportation service.

Mackenzie Miller, a single father of a 3-year-old who attends one of these daycares, testified about these exact difficulties. “The county isn’t here to make a profit — it’s here to serve us,” Miller testified. “Why can’t we focus on something that’s going to make this cost-effective?” He took issue with the way the Pathway Group conducted their study, saying it compared everything to a for-profit daycare. “This isn’t a for-profit daycare; let’s not treat it that way.”

Miller was later ejected from the council meeting after he stood up and shouted in response to Winder Newton’s comment that daycare subsidies were “not equitable” and that it was “not the county’s job.”

At the end of public comment, Council Chair Dea Theodore (R) echoed Winder Newton’s sentiment, saying, “No, it is not equitable. I don’t have this service in my district. And there are other districts that don’t have it as well… There are people working their butts off in my area.” This comment subsequently prompted the outburst and walk out from Patino, with most of the public following her exit.

Since the end of October, the weekly county council meetings have been focused on the 2026 budget. As part of that budget, four county-run daycare centers will close. Originally, they would close by the end of the year but the council agreed to fund the centers through the end of the school year instead. Photo from Salt Lake County.

A growing group of dozens of affected parents, daycare staff, and allies have banded together to form the working group Utah Works for Families (@utahworksforfamilies). Their goal is to prevent the closure of these safe, accessible, and affordable county-run daycares, encouraging any solution other than simply closing them. They started a petition to reverse the decision with a goal of 1,000 signatures. At the time of writing this article, they have received more than double the number of signatures.

In response to the immense backlash, the council held an emergency meeting on November 10th. Republicans proposed the daycares remain open until May 31, 2026. While it would give parents more time to find daycare replacements, it still was a vote to close all the county daycares permanently rather than explore other solutions to keep them open to serve working families. In protest, all four Democrats voted “no” in a 5-3 decision. (Due to technical difficulties, Council Member Jiro Johnson was unable to officially vote “no,” but he made his decision clear once he was able to join the meeting.)

When asked for comment, Council Member Jiro Johnson (D) said, “This is absolutely the wrong direction for our county council. I believe that government is designed to help make your community one where you can not only survive but that you and your family can thrive. Taking away affordable, and steeply below market-rate daycares for these families is wrong. In talking with the many families, I have heard over and over that they truly appreciate these services and the staff, noting that the county provided ride and meal service to their children which for-profit daycares in their areas did not provide or was another additional cost.”

Council Member Johnson said the decision was one that didn’t have to be made either. “[County Mayor Jenny Wilson’s] budget did not call for cutting these daycares and, although right now the subsidy to these families is high, the Republican majority has not given the community or the county any opportunity to meaningfully increase enrollment and help bring down the cost of these daycares for taxpayers. It is also worth noting that the cost to each taxpayer to run these daycares is 23 cents per year before any other cost savings could be implemented.”

He slammed the decision from Republicans, calling the move short-sighted, saying the move would “have lasting reverberations as families scramble to make ends-meet.” He committed to voting to reopen the daycare centers as soon as possible.

Following the backlash from the decision, Council Member Winder Newton took to social media to explain her decision to support the ultimate closure of the centers. In a joint statement with the other Republican members on the council, she blamed the move on the council’s desire to not raise property taxes as proposed by County Mayor Wilson.

“After being presented with a proposed 20% tax increase by Mayor Wilson, the Republicans on the county council have been looking for cuts so taxpayers can keep more of their money,” wrote the Republican members of the council in the joint statement. “An extensive report done on the county daycare program, along with a county audit with 38 findings, showed a $2 million exorbitant subsidy the county was giving to a couple hundred families — between $6,000 - $10,000 of taxpayers funds per child each year.”

The Republican members of the council explained that income was never a qualifier for families looking to utilize this subsidized daycare program. They also explained that, because the state already offers a childcare subsidy for low- to middle-income families, this was not the role of the county government.

“Given that property taxpayers are already stretched, the council chose to close this program as the county is not best suited to run daycare programming. We are doing all we can to help impacted families find new arrangements,” said the statement that was posted on Council Member Winder Newton’s Facebook page.

At the county council meeting on November 18, 2025, Council Member Winder Newton apologized to the crowd for the rapid pace of the decision and the lack of public involvement in making the decision to close the daycare centers.

“One of my regrets during this budget season is that we didn’t do a better job of outreach on these two big issues – on the daycares and the senior centers,” explained Winder Newton. “For two big decisions like that, I wish what we would have done is publicly stated that we wanted to look at these and then put them off for a few weeks until we have our final discussion on November 25th.”

“I feel like we could have done better on the process, and the process matters,” Winder Newton said in her apology.

The council has until December 9, 2025 — the date the budget must be finalized — to make a final decision about the daycare centers. Utah Works for Families is asking people to sign their petition, show up to the council meetings before and on December 9th — either in-person or virtually — and to contact their Salt Lake County Council Members to ask them to reverse this decision.

*Disclosure: Tenille Taggart is currently running for the 2026 Salt Lake County Council At-Large Seat currently held by Laurie Stringham.