Pilot Program Will Pay Majority of Childcare Costs for Mo. City's Police, First Responders

Kansas City will receive $3 million in a matching grant from the state to put toward a one-year initiative that will pay two-thirds of childcare costs for police and first responders.
Oct. 23, 2025
5 min read

What to know

  • Kansas City and Missouri will split costs to cover two-thirds of childcare expenses for police and other first responders as part of a one-year pilot program aimed at improving staff recruitment and retention.

  • The initiative, modeled after Michigan’s, will partner with licensed childcare providers and could expand to all city workers if successful.

  • Officials said the program addresses rising childcare costs and workforce shortages, with outcomes to be measured through retention, overtime and cost evaluations.

In a classroom at the KD Academy in Kansas City’s Eastside on Wednesday, more than 20 toddlers quietly ate their lunch as media and elected officials packed the small lobby outside the classroom, announcing a pilot program where Kansas City and the state of Missouri will pay two-thirds of first responders’ childcare bills.

Emulating a Tri-Share model that originated in Michigan in 2021, Kansas City will receive $3 million in a matching grant from the state to put towards the one-year program that leaders are expecting to roll out over the next few months.

For now, the program is scheduled to end in late June, with its continued use determined by availability of funds and salary savings, according to city documents.

City leaders believe this initiative will help workforce retention in the police and fire departments, and will help fill positions left open by retirees. Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw said the city could lose up to 40% of its police and fire workforce to retirement over the next five years.

“We need to find tools that will allow us to be able to recruit and retain those first responders,” Parks-Shaw said. “I think the concept is simple, that when we have individuals who work hard for us every day, sacrificing their lives, sacrificing their family, their time, it’s important that Kansas City stand with them. But not only is Kansas City standing with them, the state of Missouri is standing with them as well.”

“We know that being able to retain our first responders, we have to have assurance for all of them that they can leave their kids to go serve our community and feel good about that,” 17th district Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern said at the news conference. “Unfortunately, too much time is spent recruiting, working to retain and train employees, because child care is such a huge impediment to all of that.”

Childcare costs in Kansas City average around $2,300 a month, according to caregiver website Care.com. All childcare providers who are licensed in the state will be able to partner with the city for the program.

The challenge to find childcare for working parents

KD Academy, which stands for Kiddie Depot, is a 24-hour childcare provider who allowed the city to host its announcement in their building.

The academy, which opened in 2021 on 2141 Prospect Avenue, has hosted children of first responders previously, co-owner Myron McCant told The Star, including several from the Cass County Sheriff’s Department.

“They would travel 60 miles, 50 miles to get here, to leave their children here, simply because there wasn’t another opportunity,” McCant said.

McCant’s wife, Penny Dale-McCant, first opened the business as The Kiddie Depot Learning Center out of her home in 2005. They made the switch to a 24-hour model to further serve the community as they moved into a new location at 29th Street and Prospect Avenue in 2012.

Five years later, the center relocated to Woodland Avenue to meet growing demand. Its current, 10,000-square-foot facility serves more than 400 students.

The center is one of the only 24-hour childcare providers in Kansas City, further emphasizing why leaders advocated for this program, with several of them speaking about personal struggles of searching for childcare while working full-time.

“When I was teaching high school full time, I had three kids, five and under, and I knew I couldn’t go to work that day, I couldn’t go teach my students if I didn’t have assurances from my child care providers,” Nurrenbern said.

“For almost 29 years, I’ve watched our first responders struggle with child care, and sometimes I did too,” Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said.

2nd District at Large Councilor Lindsay French said her mother started a childcare business to take care of her and her two sisters because her father was a firefighter, working 24-hour shifts.

“She was willing to start that and to stay home because we honestly didn’t have another option as a family,” French said.

Measuring the program’s success will be done in a number of ways, officials said. Monitoring retention rate and overtime for first responders and evaluating costs is among their metrics of success.

In a 2024 evaluation report for Michigan’s Tri-Share program, which is extended to employers all over the state, families gave the program extremely positive reviews with 98% of participating families said it helped their financial stability.

But 35% of employers in the program noted employees made too much money to enroll into the program, according to the report. Eligible families must have a household income of 200 to 325 percent of the federal poverty level, which was $62,400 to $101,400.

Michigan’s program allowed employers to determine how many slots they could have for their employees.

These are details Kansas City will need to determine as it finalizes its plan.

Kansas City’s program is only available until June for the moment, with elected officials hoping to extend it to all city workers if it is successful. But they first hope to roll out the program as soon possible to assist first responders.

“[Tri-Share programs] are cost neutral because we’re able to save in what we spend on that training and recruitment and retention programs, we’re able to save in tax revenue by keeping people in the workforce,” Nurrenbern said.

“Our hope is that we can get this launched as quickly as possible, because we know that our families need relief, and they need relief now.”

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©2025 The Kansas City Star.

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