Baker County YMCA to close childcare center
Published 10:30 am Thursday, August 3, 2023
- Myer
The Baker County YMCA will close its child care center in Baker City on Sept. 29.
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The facility opened in October 2021 on the Baker Early Learning Center campus, west of the North Baker School, between Eighth and Ninth streets just south of D Street.
Koby Myer, CEO for the YMCA, said the organization can’t afford to continue operating the center, which cares for newborns and toddlers up to their third birthday and also has a preschool for students ages 3 to 5.
Annual operating costs are about $400,000, Myer said. During the nearly two years since the center opened, the YMCA has lost an estimated $200,000 in operating the center, he said.
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“It’s not been a light decision,” said Myer, who started as CEO in January 2022, after the child care center had opened. “I know it’s affecting people’s lives. But if we want the YMCA to exist then we have to do what’s best for the entire organization, not just one program.”
Myer said the center, which occupies a pair of modular buildings, is licensed for as many as eight infants and 10 toddlers.
Currently the center is caring for six infants per day, and eight toddlers, he said. Two other toddlers attend part-time.
Myer said the YMCA has had few requests for child care over the past several months, with requests for infant care being more frequent.
The preschool has about 13 students now, Myer said.
Erin Lair, superintendent of the Baker School District, which supplied the buildings for the center, wrote in a statement to the Herald that she is “really disappointed to see the YMCA’s state-licensed child care center located in the modular buildings on the Baker Early Learning Center campus close. We have been thankful for the opportunity to support this child care resource for our community along with many other local partners, and although this wasn’t a school district decision, we also understand the statewide challenges associated with staffing a state-licensed child care center that the YMCA has faced. We will continue to partner and explore additional options that might help fill the need for child care in our community around school hours.”
About half the parents who have children at the center qualify for a state program — Employment Related Daycare (ERDC) program — that pays all or part of the daycare costs for children, Myer said. That program is open to parents who are working, attending school or who receive cash benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF).
Myer said the center was initially intended to primarily help parents who work at larger local employers and whose income is too high to qualify for the ERDC.
But because the YMCA does accept parents under the ERDC program, the state requires the YMCA to charge other parents, who don’t qualify for ERDC, at least as high a rate as the ERDC pays.
That program pays $975 per month for infants, and $955 per month for toddlers, Myer said.
Those amounts are not affordable for many local families whose incomes are too high to qualify for the ERDC, he said. The gross monthly household income limit for a family of four is $5,000, according to the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care.
Myer said the YMCA could actually charge even more for parents enrolled in the ERDC — $1,190 per months for infants and $1,089 for toddlers — but has decided not to make that change because it would boost the monthly fees for parents who don’t qualify for ERDC.
Another factor that contributed to the YMCA’s decision to close the care center is the challenge of meeting the state’s training requirements for employees, Myer said.
The state requires that certified centers have at least one qualified employee for every four infants, and one employee for every eight toddlers, Myer said.
Theresa Martinez, Eastern Oregon Child Care Resources coordinator, said that even with the YMCA center operating, Baker County is considered a child care “desert” due to its availability of care spots. The two other center-based options, which are somewhat different from the YMCA facility, are EOU Head Start, which serves children ages 0-5, and Baker Relief Nursery, which serves families who are experiencing stress.
Most local daycare operations are in private homes, many of which are also licensed by the state but have smaller capacities than the YMCA center does and in some cases different requirements for how they operate.
Myer said the preschool classroom at the center will also close, on Aug. 24. The preschool will move back to the YMCA Fitness Center at 3715 Pocahontas Road. Space there will be limited to 15 students, and families will need to re-register, with preference given to students who attend the current preschool, according to a letter from the YMCA.
Myer, who wasn’t working for the YMCA when the child care center was being set up, believes the plan wasn’t financially sustainable as originally conceived, and that its opening was “rushed” and didn’t take into consideration matters such as the effects of accepting ERDC clients.
Myer also said that several local organizations that had pledged financial support for the child care center prior to its opening have not made those donations since the center opened. One exception is Saint Alphonsus Health System, Myer said.
The lack of those contributions has contributed to the YMCA’s financial struggles in operating the center, he said.