An ECE Director's View

  I have come to the conclusion, after reviewing information and personal experiences, that it would be extremely difficult to operate a center on DSHS funding alone, there are a number of very challenging obstacles when trying to balance a budget on purely DSHS funding.

  Some of these challenges include things such as late payments, a late payment will place undue financial stress on the center, negatively impacting everyone in the center from the teachers to the students, and these payments may sometimes even be two months late. Then, there are over-payments, these can happen when say a DSHS official calculates and makes payments according to an incorrect operating schedule, a large percent of early childhood education and care centers operate on federal holidays and sometimes weekends, but there are those who operate only on week days for instance, or an official might misreferences the submitted attendance forms. When overpayment occurs, the center is responsible for repaying the over-payment out of the centers current operating budget, see the difficulties there?  And that is not even covering parents/guardians who being human might forget to submit their re-evaluation paperwork, leading to discontinued subsidy payments which of course leads once again to financial difficulty, leaving our center directors in a bit of a lurch, left to choose between scheduling a breaker and keeping the lights on. Also it is worth noting that those payments that are missed, are not reimbursed through DSHS, it is up to the center directors to persue payment from their patrons.

  All in all though, the DSHS childcare subsidy programs can be and are very helpful, I do believe however that it would be a nearly insurmountable challenge to operate a center on %100 DSHS funding, you know, unless you just happen to have a wealthy benefactor filling in all the blanks through generous donations...but really, who has that?