City officials have agreed to approve an expenditure for work on a local child care center.
The Board of Public Works and Safety agreed to appropriate $8,250 from a maintenance account so that a heat pump can be replaced at Children, Inc., located at 715 McClure Road.
The city owns the building that used to be home to the Columbus Childcare Center. Three years ago the city entered into a lease with Children, Inc. and dissolved the Columbus Childcare Center board, Director of Community Development Robin Hilber said.
“This is because Children, Inc. decided they wanted to take over maintenance of the building.” Hilber told the board.
As part of their lease agreement with the city, Children, Inc. currently deposits $2,500 monthly into a maintenance account for extraordinary expenses. Any expenditure greater than $5,000 requires approval by the Board of Public Works and Safety.
The city is in the process of negotiating another three year lease with Children, Inc., Hilber said, and there’s concern on behalf of city officials that the maintenance account won’t have sufficient funding to cover extraordinary expenses in the future at the current amount being deposited monthly.
The maintenance fund has about $81,750 after the expenditure for the heat pump, according to Hilber. The Columbus Childcare Center transferred $66,000 to the fund when the board was dissolved, she said.
“We’re talking about maybe renegotiating either the amount that is placed in (the maintenance fund) or the kind of extraordinary expense that can be used for,” Hilber told the board. “We’re wondering if they might have some excess funds that might be able to cover expenses like this, because one of our concerns is if they have a major failure, for instance, a roof, we’re just not going to have the funds for that.”
One other thing the city may look to ask for would be for a city official to sit on the Children, Inc. board, Hilber said.
“We had discussions three years ago about whether to turn (the building) over to Children, Inc. and actually even sell them the building,” Hilber said. “But I think our choice was to go ahead and hang onto that, basically because we’ve got a wonderful working board. So right now, I think everything’s fine, but 20, 30, 40 years down the road, we don’t want there to be concern about whether that is to remain a child care center.”
Mayor Mary Ferdon said that she, Hilber and Executive Director of Administration Eric Frey toured the facility a couple weeks back.
“I think we were all pretty impressed with the work that they’ve done,” the mayor said.
Children Inc has doubled the number of children they serve since the beginning of the lease, according to Hilber.
“I know some young, single mothers in town, that the child care center is a lifesaver for them and allows them to make a decent living,” board member John Pickett said.
The city’s current lease with Children, Inc. comes to an end in September, according to Hilber.
