Jaclyn Brenning

Daily Egyptian

Pamela Chappel picked up her daughter Talima at the Eurma C. Hayes Child Care Center after work on Tuesday.

Her four-year-old danced around the SUV, chanting, "I love daycare! I love everybody!"

Talima has attended Eurma C. Hayes Child Care Center on East Willow Street since she was just months old, and her mother said she loves it. But the center's continual battle with low enrollment and budgetary struggles has its existence in question again.

"I think a lot of people from the community aren't aware how much this place has changed," Chappel said. "I think it's a really good place to put your kids."

The fate of the daycare and community center has existed for about three decades. But because of its costs, the center will be discussed at the City Council meeting Tuesday night after nearly two years of subsidizing expenses and remodeling the facility.

The center's future and financial straits preoccupied the council two years ago as well. Mayor Brad Cole appointed a nine-member panel to consider and make recommendations on the center, which the city has operated since 1975. The panel was to explore possible alternatives to closing the center.

The Community Services Department released numbers last month showing the daycare center at yet another year of low enrollment with a budget still about $50,000 in the negative. City Manager Jeff Doherty said that despite remodeling, advertising and reorganizing the program's budget, the center is still not self-supporting, mostly because of low enrollment.

"There's not the enrollment to generate the funds," he said.

Doherty said Monday he did not want the Daily Egyptian talking with the Eurma C. Hayes Child Care Center, and Jill Johnson, the director, said she could not comment on the future of the center later that afternoon.

The program's net deficit at $56,470, and projections for the upcoming fiscal year continue the downward trend, according to numbers from the Community Services Department.

"That's still quite a bit," said City Councilman Joel Fritzler. "But it's still a lot better than last year when it was about $200,000."

Although Fritzler said the city probably never intended to be in the daycare business, he said the center is still important to the city. He said he would just like to see more Carbondale families use it.

Figures from last month showed that 43 children attend the center. Thirty-one children are full-time and 12 are part-time. The three classrooms at the daycare center can hold up to 45 full-time children. Doherty said the city had anticipated more children this fall, but parents chose other options.

About 40 families use the facility, and half of these families have at least one parent who is an SIUC student. Doherty said a question city officials must ask is whether the city's role is to provide childcare for SIUC students' children.

Veranice Williams, a freshman studying elementary education from Chicago, was loading her 2-year-old nephew Donald into the backseat of her SUV. She said Donald has been going to the center for nearly two years.

"He learns a lot here," Williams said. "He's learning to share and play well with the kids. He understands concepts real well now."

Williams said she thinks her brother, an SIUC graduate student, chose the center as his son's daycare because it was fairly close to where he lives and the price was reasonable.

Daycares around the community and campus have waiting lists, but the Eurma C. Hayes Child Center struggles to fill a possible 45 full-time spots.

Eva Murray, director of the Rainbow's End Child Development Center on campus, said she has about 100 families on the waiting list. For infants and toddlers, that's a nearly yearlong wait. In other age groups, Murray said the center isn't as full but still has about a two-semester wait. The center can hold 111 children, Murray said, and is full all the time.

Fritzler doesn't know why the Eurma C. Hayes Center seems to have difficulty attracting families.

"It's kind of interesting we're not able to attract those people on the waiting lists at other daycares," he said.

It might be lack of publicity and a bad reputation from years ago that keeps some families away from the center, Chappel said. She said she wasn't impressed with the center a few years ago, but likes the facility after it got a new director and was remodeled.

Chappel said she thinks it could take time for the center to develop a good reputation again.

City Councilwoman Sheila Simon agreed. She said she is interested in giving the center a little time.

"I think the last time, there was a real crisis with the spending," she said. "We are way far away from that kind of a crisis. Jill Johnson is a very energetic person. I think she can do a lot if we give her the time."