Kacey Starr shows children from Head Start the inside of her ambulance Thursday. Head Start may be forced to close its doors due to the government shutdown.
Luz Garcia, of Rawlins, may have trouble finding a new preschool program for her child if Carbon County Head Start programs are forced to close their doors.
Garcia said she depends on Head Start for her child because it provides free education to her child, and allows her to attend college courses at Western Wyoming Community College in Rawlins. If Head Start closes, Garcia said she doesn’t know what she will do for a child care provider.
“It will be difficult because of the hours I go to school and I have a very random schedule,” she said.
But if the government shutdown rolls into November, Head Start programs in Carbon County face closure, affecting Garcia and many other parents and children countywide.
Carbon County Child Development Programs, the overlying organization for Head Start facilities in the county, depends on about $950,000 a year from the federal government. That money officially runs out Oct. 31, when Carbon County Child Development Programs’ fiscal year ends. Those funds will not be available until the government shutdown ends.
Head Start officials are hoping the shutdown lifts before the end of the fiscal year.
“We are hoping and praying that before (Oct. 31) they do something to solve this, because by that point, unless we have a benefactor, we won’t be able to keep running,” said Executive Director of Carbon County Child Development Programs Pamela Smith.
Head Start officials held a meeting Tuesday to notify parents of the possible closure. Smith said the purpose of the meeting was to give parents enough time to make other child care arrangements.
Losing children in the program could affect the future of a full-time program in Saratoga, said head teacher and supervisor Pat Forbes.
The Saratoga facility is one of two programs in Carbon County that are full-time, and full-time facilities require at least 20 children be enrolled. The Saratoga facility has 18 students, and shutting down raises the risk of losing more.
“There is a chance we will lose our kids and we won’t even have our classroom,” Forbes said. That’s what makes me disgusted and sick to my stomach, because there is so much paperwork and we fought so hard to get the students we have.”
Head Start gets between $8,000 and $10,000 per student enrolled. Forbes said Saratoga could lose the ability to run a full-time program if they lose anymore students.
Forbes said she is woried about parents faced with a lack of alternative childcare. The services Head Start provides is free to those who qualify, and 90 percent of Carbon County Head Start users are at or below the poverty level.
In Saratoga, options for child care are limited, Forbes said, and other programs in the Platte Valley charge for service.
Forbes said she remains optimistic that Saratoga’s Head Start will remain open, even in the face of the government shutdown.
“I am fearful, but on the other hand, we have been through this a dozen times,” she said. “This is probably the worst though.”
Saratoga Head Start lost a bus and a nurse earlier this year after a sequester took about $50,000 from Carbon County Child Development Programs. Forbes said Saratoga Head Start has also struggled to maintain 20 students in the past, but has always reached the requirements, even in tough times.
Smith said this is the biggest threat to the program since her employment in the program.
“This is really the first time we have had the budget cuts and this uncertainty,” Smith said.
Forbes said the Saratoga Head Start has some fundraising dollars that could potentially be used to keep the facility open two weeks after Oct. 31.
The last federal government shutdown started Dec. 5, 1995 and ended Jan. 6, 1996. The current federal government shutdown has been going on since Oct. 1.
Forbes said her biggest concern is the parents and children.
“I do not worry just for myself. I worry for the families and the kids,” she said.
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