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Child care center to close
After serving county residents for 25 years, the Salvation Army Fairfax Child Care Center will close at the end of next month, and parents and on-site administrators blame the downfall on mismanagement by upper-level administrators.The facility has not been self sustaining for eight years, prompting the Salvation Army to keep it afloat with a $300,000 allocation last year, staff members were told by upper-level management in a meeting last Thursday.
Facility staff were then told of the proposal to shut down the day-care center that went to the Salvation Army Board of Advisors in April, and was approved by the board at the end of June. The last day of business is Sept. 30.
But, according to officials working at the facility, no indication was ever given by upper management that there were revenue shortfalls or that the board was considering closing down the center. In fact, headquarters recently approved a new program for toddlers that was supposed to run through February 2009.
"We were definitely left out of the loop," said Assistant Director Duan Boonma, who said on-site staff do not write budgets and no major decisions are made without the consent of headquarters. "We'd been given no indication that we've been in the red, that we need to increase enrollment."
But upper-level management says that on-site staff have been told all along what the center's financial situation was and that with an $800,000 annual operating budget, only half of that figure was being brought in by program service fees for parents.
"I sympathize with the parents trying to find alternative child support. It's difficult for them, but we just can't support the center financially," said Capt. Joe Burton, Corps Officer of Salvation Army for Fairfax County, acknowledging that there are no advertising dollars available for the program.
Day care ranges from $150 to $220 per week. The center, with its classrooms, gymnasium and open space, has been under capacity for years, mainly due to prior mismanagement, Boonma said.
But with a new director taking the helm two years ago, enrollment has increased from 45 children to 86 children. Twenty more children and an influx of a few hundred thousand dollars is all that can save the center, staff were told at the meeting, Boonma said.
The facility itself has no Web site, is not listed on the county Web site and staffers have been repeatedly told there is no money available for advertising, limiting the chances of increasing enrollment, Boonma said.
Tracy Warren is angered that after two years, her 6-year-old daughter will have to be moved to another day care provider.
Warren's daughter's elementary school has a long waiting list of children trying to get into the day care program and saving the center "is such an easy solution but we never had the opportunity" to help solve it, Warren said, "and now we'll have to be on a waiting list."
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