Milly Heidlebaugh was dismayed, but not at all surprised, to learn that the isolated rural county on Cheyenne River Indian Reservation where she runs a day care center leads the nation in child poverty.

"It doesn't surprise me at all - not in the least bit," said Heidlebaugh, director of Dupree Day Care, a non-profit, state licensed day care center for 20 children in Dupree, a small town in northwestern South Dakota.

More than 70 percent of all children in Ziebach County live in poverty, according to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the Rural Life Center at South Dakota State University, giving it the ignominious distinction of topping all U.S. counties in the percentage of its children living in poverty. The year 2005 was the most recent data available.

At least 70 percent of the kids Heidlebaugh and her staff of five care for also live below the federal poverty line. Poverty thresholds vary by size and type of household, but an average family of four people earning $19,971 per year would be below the federal poverty line.

Ziebach's rate of 70.1 percent compares to a statewide child poverty rate of 18.3 percent, which is up about 1 percent from 2000. Nationwide, the child poverty rate is 18.5 percent. Child poverty rates include children under the age of 18.

South Dakota, home to nine reservations, has nine of the top 100 poorest counties in the country, including three in the top 10: Ziebach (No. 1), Todd County (No. 5) and Corson County (No. 7). Except for Montana, South Dakota has a higher child poverty rate than all of its surrounding states.

"These are the startling statistics that make my amendment so important," said Sen. John Thune, referring to a global AIDS relief bill working its way through Congress now. Thune and Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., worked to get $2 billion of a $50 billion global AIDS relief bill directed to health programs, law enforcement and water needs on America's Indian reservations. That bill passed the Senate last week. The House of Representatives is expected to agree with the Senate version and President Bush may sign it into law, along with $2 billion in funding for Native American needs, as soon as this coming week.

"Public safety has a direct impact on the economy of the region; you can't create or attract economic development in areas where people don't feel safe. For too long, these problems have been ignored or efforts have amounted to putting a Band-aid on a broken leg. Children living in poverty do not have healthy diets and underachieve in school, both of which have significant long-term consequences. These are serious problems that we need to draw attention to and find real solutions to improve the quality of life in Ziebach County and our reservations across South Dakota," Thune said.

SDSU sociologist Trevor Brooks said several things contribute to Ziebach's unusually high poverty rate, including its small population.

Ziebach has a total population of just 2,500, but a high birth rate, meaning that much of its current population is under the age of 18.

"Ziebach County's high child poverty rate is due to isolation more than anything else," Brooks said, but its small size will also create much greater fluctuations in its rate.

Changes in the poverty status of even a few families will affect the poverty rates of small counties much more than larger counties, Brooks said, making Ziebach's much more likely to fluctuate than does Pennington County's rate of 19.2 percent, which rose from 16.3 percent in 2000.

Ziebach is also a rural county with few job opportunities and lots of single-parent households, two things that are more common on Native American reservations.

"From 2000 to 2005, the number of single-parent households has increased in South Dakota. Most frequently, single-parent families are female-headed. Female-headed households often have only one source of income with a limited number of hours the woman can work and limited schedules," Brooks said. "Contrary to what many people believe, most children in poverty do have at least one working parent."

Lincoln and Union counties, near Sioux Falls and Sioux City, Iowa, have the lowest child poverty rates in South Dakota. Many of those counties' residents work in a larger city, but still live on the outskirts of it. That allows parents to earn higher wages, but still live in a smaller community, helping to keep the poverty rate low.

Buffalo County, which contains the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in central South Dakota, had the greatest child poverty decrease in South Dakota from 2000 to 2005, dropping from 61.79 percent to 43.5 percent.

"Many of the counties that decreased their child poverty rate, such as Shannon or Buffalo County, used to have a very high poverty rate," said Brooks. "One possible reason for this change is because they increased the number of their

local government jobs tremendously."

Both Shannon and Buffalo counties remain in the top 100 poorest in the U.S., however, at No. 47 and No. 83, respectively.

Ziebach residents don't have as many local and tribal government jobs available to them, and it is losing some of the few it had, Heidlebaugh said.

The state Department of Social Services office in Dupree will consolidate staff and hours with the Eagle Butte DSS office at the end of the month. Instead of four full-time staff at Dupree, two employees will man the office two days per week, DSS Secretary Deb Bowman said.

Bowman said the change will save at least $20,000 annually in office rent costs, without decreasing access to services to people in Dupree. "This absolutely will not affect child poverty rates there," she said. "Nobody lost their job and there will be no changes in the level or quality of services we offer."

But Heidelbaugh decried the move of people and hours to Eagle Butte and said low wages on the reservation keep even employed people in poverty situations.

"We need to change our worldview. We pay people who play basketball to entertain us millions of dollar, but we pay whatever minimum wage is to people who take care of our kids," she said.

Parents who can't afford quality day care have children who miss out on so many early childhood intervention services they may need, Heidelberg said.

Growing child poverty rates result in children often bearing the burden of their family's poverty.

"It's very disheartening to hear," said Joe Lenz, director of the Northwest Area Educational School Cooperation. Lenz and his staff serve students in several Ziebach County school districts, as well as numerous others. "The isolation here in the northwest part of the state is a huge factor. It's so rural," Lenz said.

He worries about threatened funding cuts to educational programs that help fight childhood poverty, such as the Birth to Three program, which provides early intervention speech, occupational and physical therapy services to special needs children.

"This statistic may be an eye opener for people who are faced with these tough decisions," he said. "This statistic is not going to go away."

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com

On the Web: Rural Life Census Data Center Web site,

http://sdrurallife.sdstate.edu/population.htm.