A resolution to move Union City’s daycare program, which now stands as its own corporation, under the city’s Board of Education was passed at the monthly Daycare Board of Directors meeting held on March 12.
“This will take the daycare as a corporation status and put it under the Board of Education,” said Union City Mayor Brian Stack, who also sits on this nine-member board along with the city’s other four commissioners.
This resolution was passed as a long-term solution to the daycare’s financial problems. Currently, daycare falls under the state Department of Human Services and is largely paid for by the tuition of the children that enroll in the program. Moving the program under the Board of Education might allow the presently-autonomous program to have better access to facilities and to have a chance to get more funding through the state Department of Education.
Much of the daycare’s financial difficulty is caused by the amount of classroom space that the center is going to lose in September.
In September, by state mandate, the daycare will have to offer full-time classes to the students. With the part-time schedule that the daycare is using now, the facility has a total of eight classrooms, four classes in the day and four in the afternoon. By offering a full-day schedule, the daycare will only be able to provide four classes, rather than eight classes of students.
Therefore, they will lose students, along with the students’ tuition.
“We will lose four of those classrooms,” said Alicea. “That is approximately 60 kids. This will cause a financial strain unless we find the funding for additional classrooms,” said Alicea.
However, Commissioner Michael Leggiero said that the board is already working on building another classroom at the 47th Street site and making renovations to the third floor of the 35th Street site which would also add more classroom space.
Other recommendations
Besides moving the program under the Board of Education, there have been other ideas for saving money. Leggiero, who also sits as chairman of this board, said that a memo received by the Board of Directors from the Daycare Director Wanda Santana-Alicea listed four or five recommendations that could be used to help in the facility’s current financial problems. One of these recommendations was to decrease the daycare employees’ workweek by two hours.
However, no further action was taken on those recommendations.
“Reducing the workday was out of the question,” said Leggiero. “That [recommendation] would really hurt [the employees] too much.”
“Some people have been working at the day care for years and are only making $15,000,” said Stack. “We can’t cut their salaries when they are making that little.”
Alicea described these recommendations as “creative” suggestions to use in a time of emergency.
“That was just some soul searching on how we would deal with an emergency situation,” said Alicea.
“It was just being creative.”
Alicea said she supports the move to the Board of Education.
“If we were to become part of the Board of Education, our employees would receive the same benefits and be on the same pay scale as Board of Education employees,” said Alicea, who also spoke of the increased services that would be offered to the children enrolled in the program.
Mayor Stack and Superintendent of Schools Thomas Highton have already begun discussions on possibly moving the daycare. However, Stack said that approval from the state Department of Education is needed before any further action can be taken.