Postscript : Future Bleak for Migrant Child Care Center

A little less than a year ago, the future looked bright for the Migrant Child Care Center in Encinitas.

Although facing a towering budget deficit of $30,000, the center in March won renewed financial support from the Encinitas Union School District, which sponsors the state-funded day care and preschool program and has helped keep it afloat with periodic infusions of funds.

In addition, parents, staff members and sympathetic community residents were coming to the rescue. They formed an “adopt-a-child” program and organized numerous fund-raisers to ease the budget crunch at the center, which serves the infants and toddlers of North County agricultural workers.

Last month, however, the situation took a turn for the worst when the Encinitas Union School District announced plans to sever its relationship with the center. Now a new sponsor must be found or the program--the only one of its kind in San Diego County--could be in jeopardy.

“It’s discouraging, because the district is really the ideal sponsor for our program,” said Suzanne Lyles, supervisor of the center. “Everyone is feeling in limbo and anxious about the future. We’re not sure how things will turn out.”

Still, the district’s action comes as little surprise to Lyles and fellow staff members. When Encinitas school trustees voted to continue their support of the center at an emotional public hearing last spring, they vowed that sponsorship would continue only if the day-care program overcame its budget deficit.

It would be wrong, trustees reasoned at the time, to continue to pump general education funds into a state-run program that benefits only 74 children, about half of whom live outside the district. Over the past year, more than $16,000 in such funds have gone to support the center.

“I feel very strongly about taking educational dollars and using them to provide child care,” Trustee Mary Jo Nortman, who voted against sponsorship, said at the time. “We’re not in the business of providing child care. And if we do provide it, we should provide it for everybody, not just this segment of the population.”

Despite their best efforts, directors and boosters of the Migrant Child Care Center have been unable to beat the budget deficit, which Lyles said is caused by escalating teachers’ salaries.

Although the program is state-funded, staff members belong to the Encinitas teachers’ union. Increases in district salaries have outstripped annual cost-of-living adjustments provided by the state. This year, district employees won a 7.25% pay increase while the state funding increase was only 1%, Lyles said.

“Our (state) funding just isn’t enough to meet that kind of salary increase,” Lyles said. “We can’t keep up any more. The deficit just keeps accumulating.”

This year, center officials project that the program will be $50,000 in the red.

The center was founded in 1976 at the urging of flower growers in the Encinitas area, many of whom rely on migrant workers and saw a desperate need for child care among their labor force.

The Encinitas Union School District agreed to sponsor the program and provide space at Capri Elementary School for a nominal fee. The center now consists of a cluster of portable classrooms surrounding playground equipment. Funding comes from the Child Development Division of the state Department of Education and from parents’ fees.

The center accepts children between the ages of 2 months and 5 years and helps them overcome language barriers and prepare for grade school. To qualify, a child’s parents must earn at least half their income from agricultural work. There is always a waiting list of 25 children or more.

Lyles said the center must find a sponsoring agency by June or risk folding. She said officials have yet to identify any groups interested in assuming the role. An agency with “a sound administrative organization and background in social services” would be optimal, Lyles said.

There is one bright spot: The district will allow the center to remain at Capri school, paying a minimal rent.