One of Utah’s most prominent philanthropic organizations offered to keep Salt Lake County’s publicly run day cares in business while county leaders found a way to keep the programs afloat for the long haul.
That donor, text messages obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune revealed, was the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation. The texts are part of a thread that included at least Republican County Council members Aimee Winder Newton, Laurie Stringham and Sheldon Stewart, along with policy adviser Alecia Williams.
“I told the Millers, ‘No,’” Winder Newton wrote in the thread, “and explained why this isn’t the role of county government.”
Mayor Jenny Wilson previously said a donor wanted to put up $1.5 million to keep four day cares in Millcreek, Magna, Kearns and Salt Lake City running in 2026, but said the supporter wanted to be kept anonymous to avoid getting “caught up in the political fight.” Council members rejected the proposal, the mayor said.
The offer followed squabbling between Republicans and Democrats on the nine-member partisan council over the future of the day cares. Republicans wanted to close the centers while Democrats wanted to make them financially sustainable.
Council members eventually voted to shutter the facilities at the end of May.
Texts from Winder Newton confirm the $1.5 million proposal. She told other council members and the policy adviser in the text thread that the foundation raised the plan in a phone call with her.
Don Stirling, the Miller philanthropic foundation’s executive director, said in a statement that “exploratory conversations took place” evaluating a potential donation, but the foundation “never approved or offered a formal funding solution.”
“The Miller Family Foundation supports programs that enrich lives and communities in the areas of health and medicine, shelter and food security, education and skill development, jobs and economic self-reliance, and cultural and spiritual enrichment,” Stirling said. “The concept of helping the county sustain day care operations for Utah’s deserving families while leaders worked toward a more permanent solution aligns with our focus areas.”
But Winder Newton, the texts show, wasn’t having it.
“I have now had two convos where the mayor is trying to talk me into extending for a year and letting the county figure out how to make it work,” she said in the thread. “I have been a consistent, ‘heck no.’ Even the Miller foundation called me and said they’d donate $1.5M to help pay for another year of the day cares while the county figured out how to do public-private partnerships for day care.”
Winder Newton then wrote that she explained to the organization that running child care centers is not the county’s job. She declined to comment further on the conversation.
The Republican caucus has cited the subsidy the county paid in 2024 to keep the facilities running as a major reason for voting to close them. It’s not fair, Republicans contend, for all Salt Lake County taxpayers — including those who have made sacrifices for child care — to subsidize programs for about 270 families. They also wanted to offset part of a county tax increase hitting homeowners next year.
Despite the impending closures, Wilson and Stringham are still working on how to help affected families find alternative child care.
“I’m extremely grateful,” Wilson said in a statement, “that the Millers were willing to explore an arrangement where we could look at the broader need in the community and seek to fill some gaps.”
Gail Miller, her family and her family foundation, the mayor said, have “a very deep commitment to the needs of families and people in the community.”
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