Dellwood Childcare Feasibility Study shared

CLINTONVILLE – During a discussion regarding long-term planning for the Clintonville School District’s Community Services Fund (Fund 80) at the Clintonville Board of Education’s Jan. 26 meeting, the feasibility study for Dellwood Childcare Center was shared with the board by Clintonville Superintendent Troy Kuhn.
Kuhn told the board that he and Board President Glen Drew Lundt had discussed the district making Fund 80 “cost neutral” and what that would look like regarding the district’s budget.
With that, Kuhn acknowledged one of the main things to be discussed in that regard is Dellwood Childcare Center, which he said is why he decided to share the feasibility study for Dellwood Childcare. He also said he wanted to “make it clear” that it wasn’t a community survey or a referendum question that triggered the creation of Dellwood Childcare.
“There was a group of people who went out and looked at daycares and put this study together,” Kuhn said.
Kuhn said the Clintonville Board of Education at the time of the creation of Dellwood Childcare consisted of current board members Ben Huber, Mark Zachow, and Kris Strauman, as well as Laurie Vollrath, Larry Czarnecki, Lori Poppe, and Jim Schultz, who are no longer on the board. According to the feasibility study for Dellwood Childcare, Kuhn said four administrators and one board member were assembled to research the feasibility of a community daycare in Clintonville. Kuhn said he was not one of those administrators.

Feasibility study
The feasibility study also indicated that there were no licensed daycare centers in Clintonville. The closest was in Marion. A licensed daycare could participate in the SHARE program and/or the FLEX option.
Kuhn said the reason Dellwood was picked for the childcare center was “it would be the most cost effective and least disruptive to current district operations.”
The feasibility study also discussed hiring a childcare director.
The study also stated, “Getting and keeping quality staff is the single biggest challenge to running a daycare. This was stated by every person we interviewed. Most often, staff needs, training and licensing, due to the low pay scale, staff often don’t stay in the profession long.”

Kuhn told the board that the district had decided that for the first year, it would hire a director and 14 staff for roughly $175,000. Twelve of the 14 employees would be part-time.
“But we were only going to have one of them, or two of them, have benefits,” Kuhn said.
For the second year, the district had planned to add a couple more full-time employees.
Kuhn also pointed out that the feasibility study stated, “It would be necessary to keep rate charges to families as low as possible given the socioeconomic demographics of the district residents and to stay competitive with surrounding area centers.”
It was also emphasized by Kuhn that the feasibility study stated, “It would be the goal each year to break even.”
While Kuhn said the feasibility study found that it was “highly unlikely” it would breakeven financially, it was stated that the benefit to the district “would come in the form of increased student enrollment.” Many of the districts that the research group had communicated with indicated that once students are enrolled, they would tend to remain in the same district.
“If we could keep 10 students, that is an additional $100,000 in state aid for just the first year,” it was stated in the feasibility study.
“So, you’d be using Fund 80 to go in the hole (financially) to benefit Fund 10,” Kuhn told the board.

Board discussion
Kuhn said the board in 2020 made a choice to open Dellwood Childcare Center based on the feasibility study. But now, the district has a $350,000 deficit for Dellwood Childcare Center and just more than a $700,000 deficit for the district’s Rec Center.

“I think we can all agree that the daycare is never going to make money, but it’s obviously costing us probably more than we planned for it to cost,” said Board Clerk Klint Barkow.
He added that the board needs to reign in the costs as much as possible, but still remain state approved.
Kuhn said if the district decided to run a childcare center that is not state approved, then the school board would take over the daycare.
“Then everything falls on you seven people, because you guys are making the rules instead of following state guidelines,” Kuhn said.
Board President Glen Drew Lundt said most everyone would agree that the Clintonville community needs a daycare.
“We need to figure out if we can keep funding it and how that works in our budget,” Lundt said. “To just let it go would not do anybody any good.”
Board Treasurer Jason Moder said he agreed with Barkow, that everyone agrees the childcare center won’t turn a profit.
“The community looks at that too and says there’s a whole bunch of other daycares in the area that operate at a profit or very small loss, so we should be able to do the same,” Moder said.
Kuhn said he wasn’t sure if it was accurate to say, “we should be able to do the same” since Dellwood Childcare is an already established childcare center. He said he’s not sure what changes the district can legally make.
Huber said the district’s goal should be to keep Dellwood Childcare operating as cost-effective as possible and to try to reduce the yearly deficit as much as possible.
Moder said it has often been stated that changes had to be made in 2020 because of COVID.
“The stark reality is COVID was six years ago,” Moder said. “So, I mean, no more COVID excuses.”
At the conclusion of the discussion, Kuhn was directed by the board to research everything in Fund 80 by the first meeting in June, to see if it is possible to make Fund 80 cost neutral.