The Center of Attention : Child care: The state will study records of the now-closed facility to resolve ‘considerable discrepancies.’ The operator denies wrongdoing.

State official Mario A. Muniz pointed to a gritty floor rug, aging furniture, a splintered wooden bookcase, an overflowing trash can without a lid.

“This,” said Muniz, “does not look like a half-million-dollar program.”

The state of California has pumped about $500,000 annually into the Little Peoples Assn., a Carson child-care center, in hopes of enriching the lives of more than 90 children from low-income families.

But in what officials are labeling a rare move, the state abruptly ended its contract with the center’s operators Monday, prompting an immediate shutdown. The action followed a July 9 inspection that turned up problems, including a lack of air conditioning and fresh drinking water, soiled cots and splintered wood furniture, according to inspection reports.

The state says it also received complaints of corporal punishment at the center.

Operator Richard Kennedy firmly defended the child-care center Wednesday but said he would surrender his state license because, after the loss of state funding, “We have no use for it.”

Now state Department of Education officials plan to comb through records obtained from the center to resolve what they call “considerable discrepancies” concerning its operations.

The state was paying the center about $21 a day for children ranging from infants to age 4, said Muniz, field services administrator with the department’s child development division.

“A program getting that money for 14 years should be rich in equipment. This equipment is very old,” he said. He touched an old pedestal-style fan whirring near an indoor play area. The fan swayed slightly on its base.

“Look, see? Very unstable. Very loose. Kids could literally chop their fingers off,” Muniz said.

“We concluded that what was happening here was warehousing kids, not child development,” said Robert Cervantes, director of the education department’s child development division.

Although the state was paying the center to serve more than 90 children, education officials this week could only account for 52 or 53 children, Cervantes said. “The records are in pathetic shape,” he said.

The state complaints were contested Wednesday by Kennedy, executive director of Employment Readiness Support Center Inc. of Carson, which operates the center.

“I feel horrible, and the parents are all shocked. They say they didn’t know these things were going on. They didn’t know, because they weren’t going on,” Kennedy said.

Asked about the state funding, he said: “We can account for every penny. . . . It sounds like an awful lot of money, but every year we have to put money in here.”

Rent alone costs the Little People’s Assn. $80,000 a year, and other outlays include salaries, equipment and supplies, Kennedy said. The number of children enrolled recently dropped because older children graduated, he said.

The day-care director challenged the state’s other allegations point by point.

The July 9 inspection reports say particles were found floating in a container of drinking water. Kennedy says the water was changed regularly.

The reports say the temperature inside the center was 90 degrees--higher than the required 68 to 85 degrees. Kennedy conceded that at the time of the July inspection, the air conditioning had not been functioning for a year, but he added: “We never had a need for it. It never got that hot in here.”

Air flow was limited when new room partitions were added, he said. But since the inspection, the partitions were removed and the air conditioning was repaired, he said.

Muniz said he has been informed that several instances of corporal punishment had been reported at the center. Responded Kennedy: “We’ve never been able to prove any allegations of corporal punishment.”

The Social Services Department is conducting its own review of the center, said Sergio Ramirez, a licensing program manager with that agency.

The Social Services Department licensed the Little Peoples Assn. and the Education Department contracted with it for the child development program. The two agencies jointly conducted the July 9 inspection.

Parents arriving to pick up their children on Monday were confronted by the unsettling sight of state police cars and television vans outside the Little Peoples Assn., located in a strip mall at 23013 S. Avalon Blvd.

“When I saw the police outside, I just flew in,” said Tammi Perez of Carson, whose 2-year-old daughter was attending the center.

Although some parents welcomed the closure, others said they felt the state might have overreacted.

“I was shocked when I went there,” said parent Teresa Renfro of Long Beach. “I feel their closing the center was wrong. I think they should have given them time to correct the errors.”

Many parents are enrolling their children at the Friendship Children’s Center, located a few doors away in the same mall.

State officials tried to reduce families’ anxiety by being present Monday afternoon so they could offer information and help to parents as they came to pick up their children, said education department spokesman William L. Rukeyser.

Such closings occur “very rarely,” because the state normally tries to work with centers to correct problems, Rukeyser said. But in this case, he said, “The list of violations goes on and on.”