Child development center in Greensboro closing due to lack of funds

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — A child development center is giving families two weeks to look into other arrangements as the center prepares to close its doors.

Alamance Child Development Center’s Board of Directors President Roger Wood said they had three weeks to make this decision. He said closing was the last thing they wanted to do.

Parents say the decision seems sudden, leaving them shocked and now left to worry about finding childcare.

“What am I going to do? Am I going to have to quit my job,” said a parent with a child at ACDC.

What’s next? That’s the big question for many parents with children who attend the ACDC.

One mom anonymously shared her concerns. Her 14-month-old son still plans to attend day care there until the facility closes next week on July 26.

“To leave a child facility that you love … and it’s more like a family, and your kid loves it there, too, to go somewhere else where you’re possibly paying more, and you’re not even sure if your child’s going to like is very stressful,” said a parent with a child at ACDC.

Staff and families were notified of the closure on Monday. This gave them two weeks’ notice.

“We received a message via the pro care app right around lunchtime with a big, long explanation as to why they were closing,” said a parent with a child at ACDC.

The center said it’s due to a lack of funding.

“In order to run a business, you have to have operating capital, and we’ve been fighting a battle maintaining the operating capital because of an income-to-expense ratio that wasn’t working. We’re not alone. We know that there are a lot of centers that have closed,” Wood said.

The child development center is a Not-For-Profit-501(C)(3). It’s located At Alamance Presbyterian Church, which funded upgrades to the center’s facilities and playground area for kids.

It runs on money from tuition and quarterly stabilization grants from the state to help with staff retention.

“However, for every thousand dollars of subsidy … when you pay that out, you have … employer taxes that are associated with that,” Wood said. “They’ll be 25%. $10,000 cost the center $2,500 on the bottom line because you’re paying employer taxes, and so it looks good,and it is good except there’s nothing to subsidize the cost of getting it.”

They’re still left to combat inflation, paying more for food and electricity along with financial challenges left over from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The center didn’t want to further increase tuition because they were worried about the impact on families.

“We had several families that needed help in paying tuition, and we know that the parents that are out there searching day care are seeing things highly-priced, and this is a shame because these are parents that work in doctor’s offices and hospitals. They’re policemen or contractors. It just is extremely difficult,” Wood said.

Parents with kids who attend ACDC said they hate to see it close. They hope another solution will be presented to prevent the closure before the scheduled date of July 26.

On July 8, Governor Roy Cooper signed a bill spending $67.5 million in stabilization grants as an effort to keep child care centers open as they struggle after June’s expiration of federal subsidies.

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