ABOVE: U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar greeted Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes at a round table discussion with local leaders and businesspeople Thursday. The main focus of the discussion was the need for child care in rural Minnesota.

MARSHALL — Rural Minnesotans have struggled with a lack of available child care for years. This week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said it’s become even more urgent to take action now.

“It’s really important to make the economic case for child care,” Klobuchar said during a visit to Marshall on Thursday. “No matter how good an employee is, they’re not going to be able to work somewhere if they don’t have a safe place to leave their kids.”

Klobuchar met with a round table of local leaders, child care providers and businesspeople to discuss area child care needs.

“Housing and day care are our largest challenges,” said Marshall Economic Development Authority director Lauren Deutz.

Marshall had a total of 33 licensed child care providers, but was still short more than 500 child care spaces compared to what was needed.

Some participants in the discussion said a lack of available child care has an impact on their businesses. Eric McVey, manager of the Archer Daniels Midland plant in Marshall, said child care was an issue that affected employment at ADM.

“It’s hard for us to get people because of scheduling and child care,” McVey said.

Carol Myhre, representing North Star Mutual Insurance Company in Cottonwood, said a lack of area child care options also had an impact on their business. Myhre said North Star Mutual Insurance has lost employees who could not find day care openings for their children.

Kim Swalboski, of Canoga Park Childcare in Marshall, said a range of different challenges also faced people who want to provide child care.

“I would say our biggest struggles are just finding staff,” Swalboski said. Beyond that, she said, “Some of the regulations are getting to be a little bit harder and more nitpicky, with more grey areas amongst licensors. And then just costs – increased costs with insurance, I’ve heard is a big one.”

“I think it’s become even more important to move on rural child care,” Klobuchar said after talking with area residents. “The needs with a changing workforce have become even more dramatic, and we want to be attracting business and expanding business.”

Klobuchar said Minnesota communities have been taking different approaches to addressing child care needs, depending on their situations. “One of those models that’s being considered here is using some existing space for smaller day cares, because not everyone is going to be able to do it in their homes,” she said. “But then you have to make sure that the rules and regulations don’t make huge barriers to do it.” Klobuchar said that model has worked in places like Morris.

Earlier this year, Deutz said the Marshall EDA was exploring the option of a “child care house,” a city-owned facility that could offer a child care provider a place to start out.

Other ways that Minnesotans have worked to address child care needs have included businesses joining forces to finance and expand existing child care spaces, Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar said there were a number of possible ways for government to help support better access to child care.

“The federal government should be creating more tax incentives for them to do that,” she said. “On the state basis, you can also look at where there’s state land and other things that you could allow use for day cares, or even housing,” she said.

Other options included loan forgiveness for jobs in industries where workers are needed, like child care, nursing home care and health care. “And in underserved areas, which is now rural, you can have immigration reform, with work permits and the like,” Klobuchar said.

“I know that sounds out of reach right now, but it’s not, because every rural state in the country is having enormous problems,” Klobuchar said of immigration reform. “The administration could say, OK, we have done some good things at the border, so now we are going to turn our sights, working with Democrats and Republicans, on improving the legal immigration process.”