The College of New Caledonia is closing its daycare this spring as usual but then the board will decide in the next few weeks if it will ever reopen again.
CNC's management has identified the daycare as a possible target in order to balance the school's budget, which is facing a shortfall this year of about $1.2 million. However, students in the Early Childhood Education program worry that no daycare will also mean lesser education for them, or even the closure of their program too.
"The daycare is a fundamental part of the ECE course," said Lea Chiang Lin who moved to Prince George from the Lower Mainland in order to take CNC's Early Childhood Education course. "It looks like the college is putting more emphasis on establishing new courses than supporting the ones we already have."
"It leads us to wonder about the future of the whole ECE program, and that is something people travel to Prince George for because it isn't offered in a lot of places," said classmate Kiley Jochimski.
CNC's executive director of external relations Randall Heidt said the ECE courses were safe, but the daycare operation was a strong cost consideration.
"There are no plans to close the ECE program at CNC," he said. "If the daycare is closed at the April 25 board meeting, we believe impact to the ECE students will be minimal as one of the only things they do with the daycare is observe, which is somewhat limited now as our daycare only has children aged 3 to 5 years old with no infants at the day care."
There are about 30 kids enrolled at CNC's onsite daycare, which was established for the benefit of staff and students who had children. Today, only six of the children attending there are associated to the college.
Heidt said the amount paid by the daycare's clients did not meet the costs. CNC subsidizes the facility in the amount of about $50,000 per year. Moreover, he said, the spacial needs for other programs and functions of the college would, if that space could be used for other things, save CNC another $200,000 in renovations this coming year.
No final decision has been made on the fate of the daycare until the CNC board of directors can meet and discuss with college management the full spectrum of financial assets and shortfalls. Both are significant, said Heidt, who said CNC "has been raising record amounts" of income but government cutbacks added to inflationary cost increases have meant several consecutive years of red ink.
By law, post-secondary institutions must table balanced budgets each year so if the income doesn't at least equal the costs, cuts must be made. Frills are no longer in existence at CNC, said Heidt.
"I think it's important that people understand that CNC has had to cut $9.67 million from its budget since 2008, which has become so difficult that many of the current choices may be undesirable but are necessary," he said. "We are always open to hearing from people if there are suggestions for making money or saving money, but we have to be balanced each and every year without exception."
