Each month the Secaucus Town Council gives a report on various municipal facilities and how they are each doing financially. And each month much attention is given to the long controversial Secaucus Recreation Center and the roughly $500,000 it has lost each of the last two years since it opened.
Almost totally under the radar are the annual losses sustained at Secaucus Daycare, the municipally-run daycare facility for toddlers and pre-kindergarten students. The losses at the Daycare center – $105,000 as of Sept. 30 – pale in comparison to those at the Recreation Center. Still, the governing body finds the losses there troubling.
“There are things municipal government shouldn’t be in business to do,” said Mayor Michael Gonnelli, who conceded the town can’t subsidize the day care center indefinitely. “We shouldn’t be in the health club business, like we are with the Recreation Center, and we shouldn’t be in the day care business. Secaucus Daycare center is competing against two or three [other] day care centers. That’s the battle we’re facing right now.”
Given the financial losses Secaucus Daycare will likely see big changes next year if its income and enrollment don’t improve soon.
________
“The previous administration went into this with the idea that they were going to make money,” the mayor said. “And that’s not happening.”
‘In the beginning, we made money’
Located next to the Engine Co. 1 firehouse at 150 Plaza Center Road, and once home to the original Secaucus Public Library, the day care center was created after the town’s new library opened its doors in 2003.
“We had this vacant building and it was a public building. So, everybody was coming up with suggestions of what that building could best be used for,” said Anthony Iacono, who was the town administrator when the day care facility was created. “There are a lot of double-income families in Secaucus and we knew we could provide a service that truly reflected the needs of the community.”
“In the beginning, we made money,” Iacono insisted, because unlike most day care facilities, the town was able to offer childcare without having to pay rent or a mortgage for space. The facility’s only expenses, Iacono said, were those related to personnel.
Under a business model that is similar to the one that was eventually implemented at the Secaucus Recreation Center, the day care center was supposed to sustain itself financially. In the case of the Recreation Center it was supposed to sustain itself through membership dues; tuition payments from parents were supposed to support the day care center.
“I think that they thought that they would have a heck of a lot more kids than what they had,” Gonnelli said.
According to the mayor, low enrollment has been a problem for the center for several years, although Iacono said that when the center opened, “we were bursting at the seams. We even had a waiting list.”
At present, there are 29 children enrolled at the facility, even though the state has approved the center to have as many as 60 students. (Current Town Administrator David Drumeler said it is unlikely the town would ever allow the facility to fill up to capacity so that the teacher-student ratio could remain low. But the center’s capacity enrollment of 60 students gives a sense of just how low is the current enrollment.)
To boost enrollment, the town accepts students from out of town, although Drumeler said there is currently only one nonresident student attending the day care center. The remaining 28 students are all Secaucus residents.
Parents pay weekly tuition to send their children to the facility and the amount that they pay, according to Drumeler, is based on the student’s age and whether the family lives in town or not.
Tuition rates range from $150 to $240 a week.
A place for patronage?
Iacono, who emphasized that he has not “seen the books on the day care center in a few years,” said it’s likely the facility has too many full-time employees for its low enrollment.
The center’s staff currently includes three full-time employees and nine part-time workers.
For years, the center has been criticized for being an employment bank for patronage jobs.
“It was opened to give people jobs because [the administration of former Mayor Dennis Elwell] equated jobs with votes,” said Mayor Gonnelli.
A separate official was more blunt in his assessment of the center: He alleged that Secaucus Daycare was specifically opened to settle a dispute between Elwell and former 2nd Ward Town Councilman Robert Kickey. “At the end of the day, what brought the two of them back together was Elwell gave Kickey’s daughter a job as day care director. That’s where the problem began and it has gotten progressively worse.”
Secaucus Daycare Director Jennifer Kickey is currently out on disability from work and was not available to comment on these allegations last week.
Former Councilman Kickey said, however, “That is so off the wall it isn’t even worth responding to. Dennis Elwell didn’t have to do anything to appease me. I didn’t have much input [on the center]. The building was empty. People were talking about what to do with it. That was considered the best use for it. She applied for the job. She was the most qualified to do it. The person who made the allegation should put his name on it.”
Efforts to reach former mayor Elwell for comment on the official’s allegation were unsuccessful.
Make or break year
In interviews with parents and other town residents, it appears that the day care center has not done enough to attract families with young children, which has only further hurt its already low enrollment. Three families whose children used to attend the center did not wish to be quoted.
“Some people have told me they were just turned off by our center and they weren’t really happy with the care that their children have received,” Gonnelli stated. “I’ve tried to address that. I think it’s gotten better.”
The mayor refused to elaborate on the specific complaints he has received from parents.
Given the financial losses at the center, it too, like the Recreation Center, will likely see big changes next year if its enrollment and income don’t improve soon.
To help keep the center afloat, the town held an open house in August to attract new students, which brought in a few new pupils. The facility has also benefitted from a new advertising campaign. But these efforts may be too little, too late.
“We said that under our administration we would give both [the Rec Center and day care center] a year,” Gonnelli said. “We said we would look at them to see where we could make improvements and corrections, see where we can save money, and then see where we are at the end of the year.”
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.