Last-ditch effort to save Junior Citizens day care falls short

Despite a packed council chamber full of residents hoping for a different outcome, city councillors voted Tuesday to move ahead with plans to close the city-owned day-care centre this summer as planned.

The previous city council voted in August to close the Junior Citizens Day Care centre, cutting 22 jobs and trimming about $129,000 in annual costs the city pays for the spaces.

The move was prompted by a decision by the province to change the way it subsidizes day cares in the province. Ron Henderson, the city's director of citizen services, said the government used to provide subsidies based on population. Now subsidies are being based on the number of children in a community, Henderson said.

“This is why we're in trouble,” he said, because Greater Sudbury has fewer children compared to adults than most other cities.

Under the previous funding formula, that allowed the city to offer more subsidies per child than any other city in Ontario. Now that the province has changed the formula, the city is getting squeezed. Funding cuts totalled $1.8 million in 2013, and a staff report said another $3.6 million is expected to be cut by 2016.

Staff at Junior Citizen's are municipal employees and make about twice the salary than workers at other day cares. As a result, subsidies at Junior Citizens were $6,304 per child in 2013, compared to $3,063 for non-city facilities.

First opened in 1972, the centre initially catered to special needs children. It became a full daycare in 1977, operated side-by-side with a Francophone daycare. Unlike most daycare facilities in Sudbury, Junior Citizens is open until midnight, and offers bilingual services so it can accommodate more families.

Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre, who moved a motion Tuesday to postpone closing the day-care, argued the fact parents could get evening spots and French language services made them worth preserving.

“I think it's important for us to try and figure this out,” Lapierre said. “We've been providing this service for 40 years, and it's a great service. I just hope you guys will support me on this.”

However, Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann said council has been dealing with the issue for the last two years. An RFP issued last year found that other providers were willing to offer French services as well as evening spots, in facilities across the city, not just downtown.

“It wasn't a decision that was taken lightly,” Landry-Altmann said “It was very, very difficult for everyone.”

Because staff are city employees, they have bumping rights. That means they can take jobs from other city employees who have less seniority. Kevin
Fowke, the city's HR manager, said they are working on how that process will play out. Someone who is bumped can often bump someone else, and so on.

“It's our effort now to map out all of those bumps prior to any movement taking place,” Fowke said.

Once all the funding cuts have taken place, it will cut the daycare subsidies in Greater Sudbury. Henderson said the province has given the city $6 million to help the city transition to a smaller system. But those funds can only be spent on the transition, and not for anything else, he added.

Currently, there are about 80 day cares in the city offering 3,500 spaces for pre-school aged children. That's the highest number of per capita spaces of any city in Ontario.