Preliminary Budget Cuts Pickleweed Child Care

The above graph shows the proportion of cuts to each department in the preliminary budget.

Although there are no lay offs proposed in the 2012-13 fiscal year’s preliminary budget, several departments, including Pickleweed Children’s Center, are bearing cuts to close an estimated $1.1 budget gap.

“[The staff] understand that they need to be apart of the solution, but it’s never easy because they know first hand the impacts on services to the community,” City Manager Nancy Mackle said at Monday’s City Council meeting.

Due to these financial constraints and a loss of state funding, Pickleweed Children’s Center will have $80,000 cut from its budget, resulting in the shut down of its school age and pre-school programs during the summer.

For many years, the city received state funding from to support the school age program, which currently enrolls 18 children, according to the staff report. The funding was eliminated in 2009, and now families pay fees for the program or receive a subsidy.

Of those students enrolled, five will graduate out of the program after this semester, and the remaining 13 can be absorbed in the kids' club program at if they request that option.  The program will continue through the summer and close before the academic year begins in August 2012.

The pre-school program, which offers activities for 3-year-olds, will close with no impacts on current families since the 20 children enrolled will continue on to pre-kindergarten. This program will close at the end of June. The pre-kindergarten will not be closed.

Three staff members will be reassigned to other city childcare centers, and there will be no layoffs.

The preliminary budget’s deepest cuts are in the police, fire and the public works department.  and leaving several positions vacant after employees retire or are promoted.

An additional $280,000 will be cut from funds that would pay for the replacement of certain vehicles and a breathing apparatus.

See the full budget staff report on the right.