YMCA to close childcare center

The Owen County Family YMCA announced in early June that they would close their childcare center.

The childcare center started approximately 16 years ago with an afterschool program.

The YMCA doubled the size of the building in 2019 to be able to expand, and the building and program could accommodate 35 daycare children and 20 after-school children.

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Financial Challenges

Board President Justin Roddye and CEO Sherri Knieriem cited high losses in personnel costs alone for the program.

Roddye said that in 2022, the program came close to breaking even for the personnel costs alone, not including utilities or other expenses for the program.

"But then in the last two years, it's been $15,000 to $20,000 where our personnel costs exceeded our revenue again," Roddye said.

The Y Alliance of Indiana did a cost breakdown of every program offered by about 2,000 members before Roddye continued.

"It was being subsidized by essentially the rest of the members, and again, while we were okay, essentially breaking even on it or losing a little it, the numbers became such that there just wasn't another way," he said.

In an effort to keep the daycare open, rates were increased in April. Prior to the rate increase, there was a waitlist.

"We made a couple of pretty dramatic raises to try to break even or lose a sustainable amount of money. And I know that's an odd thing to say... but this is not a situation where it's like, oh we're not making money, we're ending the program. This situation was costing a lot of money," Roddye said.

The April rate increase was to the tune of 20 percent.

Knieriem explained what the rate increase tried to do.

"If we could only break even, we would keep the program because the community needs it. And we really knew it was a lot, but we wanted to keep it," she said. "We wanted to add some benefits to the staff. We wanted to offer memberships to the families, also with that 20 percent increase. It didn't work. I mean, we kind of priced ourselves out of what they could afford."

Knieriem said that they considered recruiting more families to bring the childcare center back to capacity, but she added they didn't want to do it only to raise rates again and close in the future.

"We can't just expand and make it bigger, because we have limited amounts of children that we can have pursuant to state regulations per caregiver, and in the last three years, our personnel expenses have outstripped our income from the program," Roddye said.

"So if we got more kids, that would necessitate us getting more personnel."

With the number of kids down to 17, the decision was made to close the program at the May board meeting.

"It felt to me that this is the time to really step back from it," Knieriem said.

After meeting with the director of the program and holding an in-person meeting with staff, the date went out to parents electronically.

The childcare center was scheduled to close with the start of school in August, but after speaking with parents, the date was postponed to the end of August, provided that staffing levels allow for it to remain open.

This was in response to feedback that spaces opening because of school starting might not be available on the same day.

Last year, in another attempt to make the childcare center financially viable, the YMCA implemented Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) vouchers, but funding was delayed.

Knieriem said the director of the center, who was full-time, was offered other job opportunities at the YMCA and that the majority of the other childcare staff are student-aged or were hired for summer seasonal work. She said she is working on giving impacted staff career resources through a virtual career counselor, and all impacted staff are eligible for a small bonus if they stay until the final closure date.

She also addressed future use of the building.

"We're actively pursuing other daycares to take it on," Knieriem said.

She said that they would like to try to find another daycare to rent the space at a reasonable rate to try to maintain current childcare levels in the county.