Burbank Votes to Keep Debt-Ridden Child-Care Center Open for a Year

The Burbank Unified School District Board voted Friday to keep open for at least a year a child-care center that has run up a deficit of more than $453,000 over three years, but the board will look for more money from corporate sponsors--and perhaps from parents.

The board had considered closing the Horace Mann Children’s Center, which cares for the children of parents who work for the city of Burbank or for nine Burbank-based private firms, including NBC, Lockheed and Burbank Studios.

The center is administered by the school district but financed by enrollment fees. Each of the companies involved contributed $10,000 to remodel a former elementary school to house it.

About 100 parents at the district headquarters, many of them accompanied by crying infants, attended a special meeting called to try to solve the money problems of the children’s center, which cares for about 180 children ages 2 to 5.

Board members decided that, for the time being, they will maintain the current fees for enrollment at the center, which range from $80 to $115 a week. They said, however, that fees may range from $92 to $127 a week if a study to be ordered by the district indicates that more money is needed.

They also will try to persuade the participating companies to make a financial commitment to erase the deficit. So far, only NBC has offered financial assistance, district officials said.

“The realization will have to hit home with these companies that this center is a benefit to their employees and a good public-relations tool,” said William S. Abbey, board president. “I think the pressure will be there.”

The deficit was the result of mismanagement of the center’s $750,000 annual budget, school Supt. Wayne Boulding has said. The loss went unnoticed until last year because the budgets for all three of the district’s child-care programs were lumped together, thus not reflecting the deficit at Horace Mann.

Boulding said he ordered an investigation and gave each program its own budget after the loss became known.

Recently, the school district lent the program $250,000 to cover part of the deficit and to continue operating, but the district wants the money back soon.