Dear Council Members, I heard that you will consider eliminating childcare services at MCC and Belle Haven at the next city council meeting. While I understand the need to cut back and defer where possible, I believe this would be a mistake. These centers provide an important service to working parents (many of whom work in healthcare and other essential fields) and forcing them to find alternate arrangements as we try to get back to work should only be a last resort. From a certain perspective I see how one could justify closing these centers. Many cities do not offer the same service and cutting them seems to save a lot of money for just a couple line items. However: 1. While it is true that many cities don’t offer these services, once you start they quickly become essential. Parents decide where to live and how to structure their working life partly based on them (eg my wife and I did). Great teachers and staff set down roots (eg MCC has had much less turnover than the private options we’ve experienced). Finally, the children themselves get access to a stable and nurturing community. To offer this then cut it during a time of broader hardship is arguably worse than never offering the service at all, especially given the extreme childcare supply constraints in our area. 2. I would also heavily scrutinize the projected savings from such moves and see if there are ways to cut the deficit without completely eliminating services. What are the underlying foregone revenue assumptions? On the expense side is it all cash actually saved? I have seen many (often well intentioned) cost cutting initiatives fall short because the savings was against an imaginary baseline, many of the costs were just allocations of larger ongoing outlays, etc. It’s one thing make an agonizing decision to save $3M in hopes of sustaining a greater good; it’s quite another find out a year from now that you actually only saved a smaller amount because the forecast was bad. I know there are not many easy places to cut but based on the staff report I think we can avoid losing our childcare services, at least for now. Thank you for the consideration and for your service in this unprecedented time. Casey Estes Received on Mon May 11 2020 - 20:58:06 PDT
