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Many underprivileged kids in Durham County got a very cold Christmas present last year, as around 250 children on a Smart Start scholarship for government subsidized childcare were abruptly and unexpectedly dropped from their scholarship, leaving them with few other alternatives for affordable childcare. Furthermore – the agency responsible, Child Care Services Association (CCSA), has refused to come forward and explain how it mismanaged millions of dollars of taxpayer money.
In mid-November of last year, parents and childcare providers received notice that hundreds of children would be terminated from their Smart Start scholarships effective December 17th, forcing many childcare centers to close and leaving many parents scrambling to find another childcare provider. Children enrolled in the program were promised a 12 month contract for subsidized childcare, but the majority of these contracts were cut short, with only a little over 100 children receiving the full term of the scholarship. One day care provider, who previously tended to 18 children, reported losing over half of them due to the shortfall, forcing her to lay off an employee and cutting her remaining employees’ hours in half.
This story, which originally aired on WRAL- TV in December, attributed the crisis to being a result of budget cuts. Internal documents, however, tell a different story.
CCSA’s budget numbers reveal an exorbitant amount of spending leading up to the mid-year budget cuts. While CCSA was budgeted $3.4 million for fiscal year 2010-11, which spans from July 1 to June 30, a report showed that 6 months into the fiscal year they had already spent over two thirds of their budget, spending at a pace that would have overspent their total budgeted amount by $1.2 million by the end of the year. Serious questions remain as to how such a gross structural deficit could have gone unnoticed or unreported.
In response to a number of specific inquiries attempting to determine the cause of the crisis, CCSA Senior Vice President Linda Chappel refused to reveal any specific information in the following reply: “State budget cuts to Smart Start funds and our state subsidized child care fund, growing populations of vulnerable children, the unavailability of expected federal funds and lower attrition rates lead [sic] to this unfortunate situation.”
A review of CCSA’s budget for the Smart Start scholarship program reveals a 5 percent budget reduction for the program compared to the prior fiscal year. While the refusal of CCSA to produce necessary documents makes it impossible to determine whether the budget cut came in the middle or the beginning of the fiscal year, a relatively minor could not have produced such a shortfall.
More importantly, it was the responsibility of CCSA at the writing of the budget last summer to adjust participants in the program according to funding available. And in contrast to Chappel’s claims about growing populations, CCSA actually reduced the number of participants in the scholarship by 11 percent in their budget for the current fiscal year. And yet CCSA managed to burn through two-thirds of its yearly budget in just six months.
The remaining questions about the attrition rate (the rate at which children left the Smart Start program) and to what extent stimulus funding contributed to the shortfall remain unanswered, due to CCSA’s refusal to divulge that information.
CCSA did not respond to repeated attempts to contact their office via email and voicemail. Upon an in-person visit to CCSA headquarters, CCSA staff denied all access to requested records relevant to the Durham County childcare crisis. Although CCSA runs the Smart Start scholarship program with taxpayer money, Chappel claims to be outside of Public Records Law and therefore unwilling to oblige the public with critical information pertaining to why so many children were dropped from this program.
CCSA has administered the Smart Start Scholarship Program in Durham County for a little over a year, winning the contract with the Durham County Smart Start for FY09-10 over the local Department of Social Services (DSS), who administered the program for years prior to CCSA. Durham County Director of Social Services, Gerri Robinson, spoke briefly about how the program was administered previously under DSS. “It is almost impossible for us to have had a similar situation happen to us,” she said, citing rigorous monthly monitoring requirements as a safeguard against excessive spending. Reports suggest that ironically one of the reasons DSS lost the contract for FY09-10 was due to not spending all of the funding in their budget.
So are we led to believe that Civitas actually cares about at risk children or is it more likely that you’re trying to seize upon this organization to try to make the entire Smart Start system look bad? And isn’t it the plan that once you succeed in moving all the subsidy dollars to DSS you’ll then turn around and attack them for being a “big bad bloated government bureacracy,” further weakening support for these children. Of course, doing so would be a much easier sell with the public than going after Smart Start, which hundreds of thousands of working parents from across the state love.
You’re plan is transparent, your research and articles are a joke and you’re completely blinded by an antiquated ideology. I realize that Art Pope would be broke without poor people to prey upon but you’d think that with all his millions you could come up with a less transparent way of perpetuating poverty. And I just have to wonder, don’t you feel like your time and talents could be better spent improving our state instead of trying to keep us in the stone age?
The author of “You Lie” is, or should be, a student of fallacious arguments, since the posting includes so many of them. For example, an ad hominem argument–irrelevant personal attack, such as forms the basis for this posting–seeks to beg the question of whether the facts presented in this case are truthful, accurate and valid. Attempting to undermine and obfuscate the facts as noted in the article with highly subjective speculations presented via argumentum verbosium, coupled with misplaced and misleading emotional appeals–poverty and children–insults the intelligence of the reader. If the information in the article is factual, it should be evaluated on its merits. Surely the writer could not mean that the state would be better off condoning potential fiscal mismanagement? In fact, the clients and stakeholders of all such public assistance programs–including the taxpayers–are greatly benefited by prudent fiscal management, transparency and accountability.
Perhaps YOU LIE could attempt once more to explain how it is that revealing waste, fraud and/or abuse in the spending of taxpayer dollars is detrimental to children? This article does nothing more but ask questions that the taxpayers of North Carolina would surely like to know the answers to. Per usual, instead of attacking the argument, those without legitimate points resort to personal attacks. Progressives are entirely too predictable.
Of course, doing so would be a much easier sell with the public than going after Smart Start, which hundreds of thousands of working parents from across the state love.
You Lie; The problem with this picture is that Illegal Immigrants with Anchor Babies are the ones getting this service tax free.It’s time to put a end to this fraud.
It never ceases to amaze me all the programs that the liberals dream up to funnel money away from hard working taxpayers. What happened to personal responsibility and self-reliance? The more you give the more they take and there is no end. I knew a woman who worked as a teacher in a Head Start program years ago, and I was present when the mothers dropped their kids off. She admitted in disgust that she was nothing more than a glorified baby sitter for these women. They were out socializiing, NOT working, instead of being responsible parents and working with their children on reading and numbers. That is what any responsible parent would do who wants to see their child do well in school,. but wait, they don’t have to do well, the state will provide for them from cradle to grave.
I’ve read several articles from this site. This article and some of the others I’ve read are a poor representation of the real truth. You did a poor job of trying to “on the side” slam smart start. I’m not for or againts smart start, but I’m for every dime we spend on kids. We should double whatever money we currently spend on children! There are numerous wasteful programs and I’m all about cutting those back but money spent on kids is not a waste! I think I’m going to look into the civitas money chain…. Where do you guys get funding? Hmmmm I wonder….
It’s time for us to be accepting of children of all races. They should all be given every opportunity to become the best law abiding well paid citizen and allowed to be taught to give back to society has he or she grows into adulthood. Programs like More at Four and Smart Start does level the playing field for many of these children and there families. There will always be people who do bad things but these programs provide positive evidence based intervention for OUR children. In my observation as a local public health nurse with 23 years of public health experience, is that many of the the participants of these programs have become productive tax pay citizens. I have also seen single mom become teachers, nurses,etc as a result of the child care services, some people just need a hand to help them stand on their own, in the spirit of each one teach one, pass it on…..