California budget woes cast shadow over day-care centers

Tamieka Wellington wishes she knew six months ago what she knows now — that the Hayward, Calif., child-care center that watches over her 3-year-old daughter might not be able to help her out much longer.

Cuts proposed in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s May budget have cast a shadow of uncertainty over such facilities — specifically the ones that offer no-cost or low-cost care.

Wellington, 26, had enrolled in beauty college while her daughter Syah Todd was getting prepped for school at the Helen Turner Children’s Center.

Now Wellington’s cosmetology classes would have to go by the wayside while she watches Syah at home. There is no backup plan.

“Where’s the success story?” she said. “What’s going to happen to us? Maybe we’ll end up on welfare.”

Although the governor’s proposed general child-care cut was rejected by Assembly and Senate committees along with other measures that would have been crippling to low-income residents, Donita Stromgren, public policy director of the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network said it’s hard to say whether it’s going to come back to the table.

And there’s an immediate problem, particularly for day-care centers run by financially strapped school districts.

Some school district administrators say they can’t wait to find out whether the proposal makes it into the final state budget; they must submit balanced spending projections to their county offices of education by June 30, well before the final state budget is usually passed.

In Hayward, where pink slips went out to scores of child-care employees last month, doors may close July 15 and not reopen until late August — but only on a half-day basis, and for a limited number of kids.

Berkeley Unified School District is taking $300,000 from its general fund to keep the doors open through the end of August, but it has warned parents and teachers of a possible closure in the fall. Alameda Unified will decide what to do June 22, board member Mike McMahon said.

The Oakland school district’s chief financial officer, Vernon Hal, said the district had no choice but to make the cuts — totaling nearly $15 million — immediately. To preserve some of its full-day preschools, district administrators might take $5 million from the adult education program, a move that would eliminate classes for English as a second language, high school diplomas and career technical education in the city.

“We’re in a situation where it is robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Hal said.

Stromgren said the cuts would cause a devastating ripple effect. To work or go to school, parents need someone to watch their child. If they can’t afford private care, their own occupation defaults to at-home parent unless they have relative to help them out.

She cited calculations that her group made with the California Department of Education that predict the cuts would affect 200,000 children across the state. About 100,000 working parents would have to quit their jobs. Also, 130,000 jobs related to the child-care field would be lost.

But parents say the biggest blow would be to their children, who wouldn’t get a head start in their education.

Paul Miller, executive director of Kidango Inc., a nonprofit child-care organization with numerous facilities in Alameda and Santa Clara counties, called it “diminishing the potential for long-term success.”

Miller said that out of the 2,500 children at Kidango, 2,200 would be dropped if the general cut comes down.

Kidango is hoping for the best while riding it out on a dwindling line of credit.

“We’re fairly confident we can go for two months,” Miller said. “But if this will continue until the end of October or later, we’ll have to close.”