As a result of the March federal sequester, Southeastern’s Head Start and Early Head Start, along with 13 other Head Start centers located throughout five different parishes, have seen a decrease in federal support, totaling 5.27 percent, the worst cut in its history.
That cut is not as deep as it could have been. Head Start is an $8 billion early childhood program that relies on federal funds and donations.
Original plans estimated the Head Start centers would be cut by eight percent, a devastating number according to Regina Coeli’s Child Development Center Executive Director Dr. Susan Spring.
“Last year, when they first started talking about this in October and November, when they were redoing the budget, at that point in 2012, the projection was eight percent,” said Spring. “And so I started working with my board of directors, and we had our first big planning meeting in early December and asked what we were going to do if we were to get cut eight percent.”
Spring said when March came around is when the center ultimately found out that it would be a cut of roughly five percent.
Sequestration cut the centers’ budget by approximately $695,730, taking it from $13,396,647 to $12,700,917.
“Our budget would have been over 13 million, and now we’re under 13 million,” said Spring.
Coinciding, the number of children Head Start and Early Head Start can service at one given time during the year has been reduced.
“After the cut, we have 1,680 kids,” said Spring. “We have 1,424 for Head Start and 256 for Early Head Start. Before we had 1,776; that was our old total. We are now only funded to serve 1,680 kids at one time.”
Southeastern Head Start Director Windy Wells said they were anticipating and expecting the decline in federal aid.
“Yes, we were expecting deep cuts in our budget, and that is what happened, $695,730 worth,” said Wells.
With those decreases comes a reduction in service days. Head Start now only services children and employees for 160 days, cutting exactly six days from its school year calendar. Spring said employees are now paid even less because of the days cut.
Head Start 12 month, exempt employees will be forced to take nine furlough days as a result of the sequester, which is essentially nine days off for those employees, but without pay. This will save Head Start roughly $51,160. Hourly 12 month employees will have to take six furlough days according to Wells, saving $211,596.
However, there is some flexibility for the employees with furloughed days.
“They did give people the choice of where they would like to place the nine furlough days throughout the year,” said Spring.
A total of four Head Start classrooms were closed, eliminating four teachers, four teacher assistants and approximately 80 child positions, saving the center’s a total of $293,740 with only $78,041 coming from Early Head Start.
None of the classrooms cut affected the Southeastern Head Start though.
What did affect Southeastern’s Head Start directly was the elimination of one Early Head Start classroom.
“We lost one teacher and four Early Head Start children spots,” said Wells. “Meaning, four SLU students will no longer have free childcare available at our center to work on their college degree.”
Spring said it was necessary for the Early Head Start center because of the structure of their facilities.
“They have one of our longest waitlist, but because of the way the building is designed, it was sort of the best decision just to make the best setting for the children,” said Spring.
Spring also acknowledged that the Head Start children are much cheaper to serve than the Early Head Start children because of the teacher to ratio difference.
“It’s cheaper to serve the Head Start kids because the ratio is higher. In Early Head Start, I have one teacher to four babies,” said Spring. “In Head Start classrooms, I have a one to 10 ratio. In a Head Start classroom I can have two teachers with 20 kids, and so it’s cheaper to serve them.”
Flexible budget categories such as supplies, field trips, parent activities, other administrative, equipment and material savings because of classroom closures were all reduced by five percent.
Cutting consumables such as supplies saved Head Start $19,147 and Early Head Start $6,727.
Two administrative employees were reduced from 12 month employees to 10 month employees, but Spring said they were eligible for unemployment in the summer.
Also, some administrative positions within the Head Start offices were placed on a temporary freeze, as well as cutting three bus drivers and three bus monitors.
The reduction in Head Start services saved a total of approximately $532,254, while Early Head Start saved only $163,476.
One of the repercussions from the sequester that hit the hardest when school started up was the amount of time employees had to get ready for the school year, according to Spring.
“By cutting the days meant that when teachers came back to work, they had fewer days to get ready,” said Spring. “Fewer days to set up their classrooms, fewer days to do home visits; it was like everybody just came back, and everyone had less time than they normally do. That’s been hard.”
And while the sequester may have overall affected programs that are not used to taking federal cuts, Head Start certainly is. Spring said their budget has not been increased since 2009.
“The fact that we have not had an increase in so many years too in our budget, every year it’s less money than we had the year before,” said Spring. “In reality, it’s not that they take away money, although this year they did, it’s that the cost of everything rises and so even though they funded us level, it’s a decrease every year.”
The last Head Start was officially decreased by the federal government was sometime back in 2001 according to Spring, but the cut was only about one percent.