Reno council ponders city’s role in confronting child care shortage

By April Corbin Girnus

Nevada Current

The City of Reno plans to review its ordinances in hopes of recommending changes to expedite the permitting of child care facilities.

Reno City Council last week gave city staff the green light to review its existing child care ordinances and offer amendments, which will have to go through a public feedback process before being considered by the city’s zoning commission and then city council. There is no set timeline for when any future ordinance might be considered.

The review was requested by Councilmember Kathleen Taylor, who said a constituent came to her and said the city needs more child care. Taylor said her initial reaction was “we don’t really do child care at the City of Reno,” but after speaking to the city manager she recognized there are some things that can be done “within the confines of what the city does.”

Grace Mackedon, a senior management analyst with the city, told council members that her staff does not have specific changes in mind but will review best practices in other cities and collect feedback to see what barriers can be reduced for existing or prospective child care providers.

“We’re going to look at: Can we streamline that (permitting) process?” Mackedon said. “Is there anything else we can do to make it easier?”

In-home providers and businesses that offer on-site child care for their employees pay the city around $4,300 when applying for a minor use permit, and there is no guarantee of approval. The city’s review process takes about 30 days.

Standalone child care facilities pay around $5,000 for a conditional use permit when in residential zones, and the review processing time is 65 days.

“That’s a risk for the child care providers because they’re investing that time, investing that money, not knowing if they’ll get approval,” said Mackedon. “Can we put standards in code so they know that, if we follow these standards, we know we’ll get approval?”

Seven organizations, including The Children’s Cabinet, United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra, and Children’s Advocacy Alliance, expressed support for Reno revisiting the local zoning ordinances.

“Child care is an everybody problem,” Tara Raines, deputy director of Children’s Advocacy Alliance, told the Nevada Current.

Child advocates often focus on federal and state policies that they believe will have the greatest impact on families, like the federal child tax credit, which was temporarily expanded under the Biden administration but whose accessibility will constrict under the Trump administration. But efforts at every level of government are helpful, say advocates.

The 2025 legislative session saw some efforts to expand the availability of child care, but most proposals failed. One bill that would have prevented home owners associations from prohibiting licensed home-based child care providers was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo. A proposal to adopt universal pre-K was proposed by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro but was scaled back to become dependent on available funding after the state’s economic outlook deteriorated.

Raines notes that cities are heavily involved in recruiting businesses and often offer incentives in the name of spurring development. They could incentivize companies that offer workplace-based child care options.

“We’re seeing more people make the business case for child care,” she added.

A 2023 business survey conducted by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation found that half of businesses said employees and potential hires have expressed child care as a barrier to work. Nearly all — 94.5 percent — of respondents believed greater access to child care could improve their business by improving workforce retention.

Raines recalled seeing a recent social media post from a Las Vegas parent saying they had no child care for an elementary-aged child. The parent wanted to know what people thought the best option was: quitting, getting fired, or leaving a 7-year-old home alone for a full shift. The child was enrolled in a summer program but the parent wrote they didn’t have enough money to pay for the upcoming week.

Having to make these sorts of mental calculations in your head isn’t an anomaly for families across the state.

“It happens all the time,” said Raines. “If you want to be able to check out your groceries at the store, have someone make sure your utilities are working, get your oil changed, get your food served… child care is a community issue.”

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April Corbin Girnus is an award-winning journalist and deputy editor of Nevada Current. A stickler about municipal boundary lines, April enjoys teaching people about unincorporated Clark County. She grew up in Sunrise Manor and currently resides in Paradise with her husband, three children and one mutt.