Palouse School board votes to lease day care

The day care in Palouse may soon no longer be operated by the school district; instead, it will be transformed into a non-profit day care run by an independent board.

The Palouse school board voted to turn the management of the day care over to the parent task force that will create the non-profit at its Tuesday board meeting.

The board also voted to give the school administration permision to begin negotiations to lease out the day care facility.

The board will run the facility until Oct. 4, when it will be turned over to the parent task force.

After the school board came close to closing the day care in early April, citing losses of revenue, a task force of parents and board members spent the next month researching ways to keep it open.

The task force presented a business plan for a non-profit to the board May 19. The plan included a line by line budget for helping the day care operate without a loss.

The school board and task force at the May 19 meeting talked about the many other details it would take to lift such a project off the ground. Retaining day care staff, obtaining non-profit status and the time line needed to re-open as a qualified non-profit were included.

The school board in past meetings received reports that the day care was operating at a loss but reasoned those losses were justified in light of how many day care youngsters wound up in the school system.However, with the ever-tightening state budget, the district decided this year it couldn’t continue to lose so much.

From 2005 to 2010, the day care’s average annual loss has been $33,354, according to a report written by the task force.

Those losses were mostly because of two specific business practices the day care was using, said task force spokesman Jens Hegg. The plan for the non-profit features a balanced budget, after the task force eliminated some of the current business practices of the day care.

First, the day care was charging families by the hour instead of requiring families to use full-time or part-time slots. Because the enrollment of the day care could change hour by hour, staffing was often disproportionate to the number of children attending.

“Because people could bring their kids in at any time, they had a lot more staffing than they needed at some of those points,” said Hegg.

The task force seeks to fix that problem in its business plan for the non-profit by requiring families to sign their children up for full-time or part-time positions, eliminating the issue of hour-by-hour payments.

“Even if people don’t bring their kids that day, they have reserved that spot,” said Hegg.

Another major change made to the day care operations in the non-profit plan comes in the way employees are paid. The salaries of most day care staff will be raised, but benefits will no longer be offered to any employees except the day care supervisor.

The task force estimated the initial start-up cost of the organization would be $15,000 to $20,000. Coming up with those funds could mean asking parents to pre-pay some of the tuition for the school year. Members of the task force also suggested applying for public grants or trying to form a Public Development Authority, which is a government-owned corporation.The school district has told the task force it would be willing to rent out the building that houses the day care for a very minimal cost.

The Little Sprouts Day Care is the only day care in Palouse. Parents with children in the day care have said they may have to quit their jobs or try to move their children to facilities in Pullman or Moscow if the day care closes.

One parent in the audience spoke at the May 19 meeting, saying she pulled her children and enrolled them in a Pullman day care, not wanting to be out of child care in the fall. However, she said, she would consider returning if the new day care proved to be a good institution.

School board members complimented the task force on the thorough business plan, pointing out it answered all their questions.

“I think this is what we were hoping would happen. You have all the encouragement in the world from us,” said board member Mike Dymkoski.

There are still some outstanding bills left to be paid by parents. Superintendent Bev Fox pointed out the school district, not the new non-profit, will be responsible for those bills.