Two-hundred forty-four thousand, four-hundred and sixty-five dollars.
That was the amount of an Iowa Childcare Stabilization grant the Lisbon Early Childcare Center received in early February.
It’s an amount that director Bre Ties still can’t believe is real and that the center is receiving.
“I don’t think I’ll believe it’s real until I see it in our bank accounts,” Ties said. “I finally feel like we’re able to breathe for a little bit as a center, that we’re not going to constantly be worried about paying employees or their benefits.”
The grant was from the American Rescue Plan Act funding, and was administered in a process from the Department of Human Services in Iowa. DHS received $200 million dollars that needs to be designated to stabilizing childcare programs in the state of Iowa.
Ties has been applying for a number of grants throughout the pandemic, but many of those grants were ones geared towards smaller childcare centers who were impacted during the height of the pandemic. The center did not qualify for them due to enrollment numbers or other factors.
The stabilization grants were mentioned in a DHS webinar in November, and as Ties was listening to the guidelines for the centers who could apply, the grant fit so many of the parameters for the LECC during COVID-19.
In order to qualify, daycare centers had to have remained open during the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic, retained their employees during that same time frame, and show that there were times they as a center had known they were operating at a revenue loss. For many smaller centers, that point on revenue loss was where they were taken out of the running, as their financial losses were taken care of by other grants.
The LECC did have a deficit, one the Lisbon School Board approved transferring $150,000 to help offset in September 2020. The center’s enrollment during the pandemic took a significant hit, as many families worked from home during the months of March through June with the online learning offered by the district.
The stabilization grant is based on a daycare’s enrollment numbers per day and per child. There are also additional stipulations on where the money can be spent over the next three months, including limiting the funds to payroll expenses and helping to alleviate costs on some of the most financially strapped families using the center. The center has a payroll of roughly $85,000 a month, so the $244,465.20 is nearly three months of operating expenses.
For Ties and Lisbon business manager Laurie Maher, it will be easy to earmark this grant for those expenses while helping the center grow back some depleted savings.
“This really helps us bank two to three months back into the LECC fund by utilizing our tuition funds as a savings for the center,” Maher said. “It helps give them a cushion again, so that fund is back at a healthy level, as well as needed breathing room as we head into negotiations with employees.”
Lisbon superintendent Pat Hocking commended the success of Ties in getting this grant and keeping a center that Lisbon Schools has been running since 1991 continuing to operate in the district.
Ties also said that the state will have $200 million in funding from the federal government that will need to be spent over the next few years, and there is a chance additional money could be available.