It appears that the Hancock Daycare group will have to wait longer for a decision from the Stevens County Commissioners in regard to their application for funding for a daycare center in Hancock. The group applied for a portion of the funds that the county had received from the American Rescue Plan Act and set aside to address a daycare shortage in the county. The County Commissioners had approved spending $1 million of the $1.9 million the county received in ARPA funds to find ways to bring in more daycare opportunities.
At the last meeting of the Stevens County Commissioners, it was decided to award $1 million to Apollo Development Company for the construction of six pod type daycare buildings. Apollo and the Hancock group were the only two applicants for the funds. After making that decision, the commissioners discussed possibly using some of the remaining ARPA funds to help the Hancock project. They instructed County Administrator Rebecca Young to come up with an amount of the unallocated funds.
contract would be ideal. However, with several questions left to be answered, the contract approval was tabled in order to get the wording correct. The commissioners instructed Dingman to proceed with the interview process.