By Becky Long
Publisher
Clay County parents and daycare workers were handed a heavy blow last week when they learned of the closing of 13 centers in western North Carolina, including two in Clay County. The final closing date is set for Oct. 31.
The closings affect daycare centers operated by Southwestern Child Development and includes the oldest one in operation in Clay County, Elf Day Care, along with Small Blessings in Hayesville. Hayesville primary school’s daycare program had been on the list of closures, but on Monday the local school board reallocated funding to keep that program running through the end of the year, giving them time to find options.
There are 70 children enrolled in Southwestern Child Development centers here and they employ 21 workers.
“With profound sadness, Southwestern Child Development Commission is announcing the closing of our agency operated child care centers, located in several counties in Region A. Our centers serve high numbers of children who are eligible for NC’s Subsidized Child Care Program,” said Southwestern Executive Director Sheila Hoyle in an Oct. 20 release.
“Reimbursement policies from the NC Division of Child Development and Early Education have required that our agency supplement the state rate in order to keep these child care centers open. We no longer have adequate agency resources to supplement the state rate,” she explained.
Hoyle said new county market rates were implemented on Oct. 1, 2023 but the rates offered only small support or improvement to the rural counties of Region A.
“Again, this is a sad decision for our agency, as providing direct child care services to the young children in Region A is at the heart and soul of our work,” Hoyle said.
According to Clay County resident and Southwestern Child Development Chairman Charles Penland, inadequate funding of these centers has been an ongoing issue.
“Early childhood education has historically been under funded. The state of North Carolina has a peculiar funding formula that penalizes small rural counties in the amount of reimbursement that comes from the state,” said Penland. “For instance, Wake county gets $1,417 per child per month. Clay County gets $897 per month per child. They justify this inequity by the argument that it costs more to provide daycare in those large, populous counties. “
Penland said SWCD has been arguing this for years, and until a couple of years ago, the legislature funded a study to prove this funding formula was correct. However, the study found that in fact it cost more to provide day care in small rural counties than in large counties.
“We felt that with this new information the funding formula would be made more equitable this legislative session,” Penland said. “In fact, Senator [Kevin] Corbin introduced a bill, correcting this funding problem, that would have prevented our current crisis, but it did not pass.”
Penland said the bulk of the funding for the subsidized child care program comes in a block grant from the federal government. It comes to the state who distributes the money to the counties by the funding formula mentioned above.
“As mentioned earlier we have been fighting this inequity in funding for years. COVID and its aftermath just brought it to a head. Our efforts to secure funding have basically been two fold. During this last legislative session, with the help of our local legislators, parents and other community leaders we advocated at every opportunity for funding through the state budgetary process.,” said Penland. “We also applied for private grants. We were unsuccessful with the state legislature. We were able to secure some private grant money, but not enough to prevent the current crisis.
“Secondly, we begin a consolidation and austerity effort that we had hoped would get our agency out of deficit spending. We consolidated our 13 centers in the seven counties down to seven, reduced our food costs and other spending cuts. These measures did not get us out of deficit spending and we saw our cash reserves diminish. We feel we have left no stone unturned from local and private sources to state and federal sources. We have no options but to close.“
Penland said providing childcare has been at the root of Southwestern Child Development. “We have done that successfully for over 50 years. In many counties we were the only daycare provider for many of those years.We are devastated at having to close our day care operation,” he said. “We are deeply sorry for that and apologize for the abruptness of this. On the positive side we are beginning to see our communities step up and begin to fill in this gap in day care services. We are prepared to lend our expertise to help theses community resources take over day care services in all counties. We are hopeful that eventually families will have more choices for day care than before.”
Hoyle noted that other services offered by the agency are not impacted. “We will continue to deliver child care subsidy administration, child care resource and referral services, nurse family partnership services and other services, both regionally and statewide.”