Trustees Examine Day-Care Expenses

For Barbara Squires, the Saddleback College Child Development Center in Mission Viejo is a lifeline.

It’s a fully accredited, high-quality day-care center just down the street from her classes. It provides safe, affordable care for the Rancho Santa Margarita woman’s 5-year-old daughter, Jessica, while she works toward graduation.

But community college officials look at the center as a drain on the district’s budget, drawing $155,000 this year from the general fund. It’s time, they say, to see what can be done to lower costs, even if it means cutting back on yearly subsidies to the centers at Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges.

“We’re paying an amount to subsidize what would pay for 100 classes for 2,000 students,” said Dorothy Fortune, a trustee of the South Orange County Community College District. “I’m not favoring radical changes, but we’ve got to get a handle on costs.”

The center provides a valuable service, proponents say, offering child care at a 30% discount for students, as well as giving early childhood education majors a real-life laboratory.

But concerned board members point to the large number of children enrolled in the center whose parents are not students, to the high teacher salaries and the student-to-staff ratio, which is lower than the state maximum, as areas for cutting costs.

At the board’s request, Saddleback officials are exploring ways to make the center more cost-effective, said Vern Hodge, vice president of student services. “We’ll look at what we can do to maximize our capabilities to reduce that amount of money” provided by the district.

The goal, Fortune said, is to help the center be as financially self-sufficient as possible while still serving students’ needs. “My main interest is to make sure that students’ children are being served so the students can complete their education in a timely manner,” she said.

More than half of the center’s pupils have parents who are not students, something that must be looked at, board members say. Fortune and Trustee Nancy M. Padberg said they’ve heard that some students’ children have been put on waiting lists while children of nonstudents were enrolled at the center.

Center director Sandy Phillips denied that, saying students always get first priority.

Now, as the board considers changes or cuts in funding, parents accustomed to the center’s good reputation are bracing for the worst.

“If they [make changes], either we’ll pay more or maybe they’ll have to reduce the number of teachers,” parent Victoria Torres-Stambuk said. “The main reason I like this place is the teachers.”

Teacher salaries, which are considerably higher at the center than at many Orange County preschools, make up the largest chunk of center expenditures, Hodge said. Starting salary for a full-time Saddleback center teacher is $2,535 a month, compared with $2,000 in some Orange County school districts, said a spokeswoman for the county’s Department of Education. Salaries, however, are difficult to change because Saddleback’s preschool teachers are unionized, Hodge said.

One area the district may be able to cut corners is the center’s small student-staff ratio, now at 10 to 1 as opposed to the state limit of 12 to 1. Hodge said the center may need to increase this ratio to maximize its capabilities.

Yet the smaller ratio and good teacher salaries are the reason for the center’s success, Phillips said. Some parents expressed wariness over any budget cuts.

“I don’t think they’d be able to afford the supplies, and I’m sure it would affect the quality of the teachers,” parent Shannon Seifert said. “It could affect everything.”