miami, FL afterschool suffers from budget cuts
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13776041.htm
1,000 low-income kids to lose after-school care next month
BY MATTHEW I. PINZUR
mpinzur@MiamiHerald.com
About 1,000 low-income children will be cut off from publicly funded after-school care next month, and thousands more could follow as Miami-Dade's Early Learning Coalition struggles to avoid a budget deficit.
The coalition, which oversees public child-care funds, used a surplus last year to start paying for after-school care for thousands of additional 6- to 13-year-olds, hoping to balance the budget through attrition as families moved away.
But attrition was much lower than projected. Unless it picks up dramatically this spring, the coalition could face a shortfall of $5.7 million.
The coalition board voted Thursday to cut off about 1,000 children from families that were previously on welfare. Those families are guaranteed two years of subsidized after-school care after moving off welfare, but the coalition has traditionally funded them for much longer by letting them bypass the lengthy waiting list of working-poor families who want services.
''We have to deal with the money that we get,'' said board member Sara Herald, referring to the federal, state and county funding that the coalition uses to serve about 30,000 children in Miami-Dade.
The affected families will be notified with letters in the next few days; their funding will be cutoff 30 days later, three months before the school year ends.
''I don't want to hear on the news about something happening to one of the [children],'' said Steve Steiger, assistant director of Decroly Learning Child Care, which provides after-school services in Homestead.
To avoid canceling coverage for hundreds or thousands more children, the coalition plans to ask The Children's Trust to cover any remaining shortfall.
That request would come in two forms. The first would ask the Trust to temporarily pay the 20 percent supplement the coalition gives to ''gold seal'' child-care centers, which meet high standards set by independent accrediting groups. That would save the coalition $3.9 million.
The coalition will ask the Trust to contribute up to $1.4 million to cover mandatory local matching funds to state grants. In the past, the coalition only needed to pay that match based on budget projections, but it is now based on actual spending. Based on current projections, the coalition would need $1.4 million more than it originally budgeted.
But the Trust, which is funded by a property-tax hike approved by voters in 2002, was designed to improve the quality and quantity of children's services in Miami-Dade. Covering shortfalls at other agencies is anathema to its leaders, who fear state and local agencies would habitually underfund children's programs and expect the Trust to cover the difference.
Moreover, the Trust will expire in 2008. If voters do not approve it again that year, it will dissolve.
The Trust's board next meets on Feb. 13. A number of its members also sit on the coalition's board, including Trust Chairman David Lawrence Jr.
''We want to figure a way out of this [projected deficit] and do it quickly, but do it in a way that is loyal to the ethos and campaign of the Trust,'' said Lawrence, a former Miami Herald publisher.
Given the choice between saving after-school care for hundreds of low-income families or standing by a spending principle, said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Natacha Seijas, who also serves on the coalition board.
''Those taxpayers would not want to see children disenrolled [from after-school services], period, end of sentence,'' Seijas said.
Enrollment is almost impossible to manage perfectly because the number of children who move away each month is unpredictable. If the coalition enrolls too few children, it ends the year with a surplus and has its budget cut for the following year. If it enrolls too many students, the current specter of a deficit emerges.
The coalition's president, Paula Bender, said some of this year's problems were caused by an awkward transition to a new state-mandated computer system, which she said has mangled some data.
Only one board member voted against petitioning the Trust, saying the coalition needs to do a better job managing its enrollment projections and, if necessary, demand more funding from the Legislature.
''We're overspending our budget,'' said Dabney ''Bud'' Park. ``We ought to have a tougher line around here.''
