MACHIAS – Washington County is in danger of losing at least one of its 15 child care centers unless area towns can come up with money to help a nonprofit agency reduce its $100,000 child care deficit, the agency’s executive director said Wednesday.

Sandra Prescott said directors and teachers at Washington Hancock Community Agency’s child care centers in Calais and Machias met Tuesday and agreed to close the Calais program on Aug. 30 and reduce the operating hours of a facility at the University of Maine at Machias – if WHCA can’t get help.

The two centers have been in operation for at least 15 years and serve a total of 60 children – preschoolers, infants and toddlers and children who come after school. Each center has a waiting list of more than a dozen children, she said.

Prescott said other staff members, such as assistant teachers, cooks and substitute child care workers, were meeting on the matter Wednesday.

“We need community help and community support. We need it now and we need it to be sustainable,” she said.

Making ends meet in the child care programs has been difficult for the past three years, but the agency has added services, such as an infant-toddler program. In addition, regulatory changes have dramatically reduced reimbursement levels from federal sources.

WHCA has been relying on short-term funding sources for its child care programs to make up the difference.

Prescott said the WHCA board authorized the child care management staff to make cuts to reduce the $100,000 deficit and make child care a break-even operation for next year. WHCA’s budget year ends Aug. 30, she said.

“What is so heart-breaking is that the board has been struggling for at least three years to improve the quality of child care in Washington County,” Prescott said. “But 80 percent of our children are subsidized and we have to subsidize the subsidy.”

Prescott said WHCA’s costs are $160 a week per child. But the highest subsidy the agency can receive under federal rules is $130 a week. The voucher program for other income-eligible parents pays closer to $100, she said.

Even parents who are able to pay are charged just $95 a week, because jobs in Washington County don’t pay enough to enable people to pay more than that for child care, particularly if the parents have more than one child, Prescott said.

The agency is grappling with regulations that apply to federal subsidies for low-income people. The federal subsidies are administered through the state.

In order to be eligible for the federal subsidy, a child’s parent has to be at work or in school, which means WHCA doesn’t get paid when a parent is out sick or on vacation, she said.

“The more low-income children we take in the center, the more we lose. But we want to serve these children,” Prescott said.

Both Washington County Technical College – which houses the Calais center – and the University of Maine at Machias – which just raised $500,000 to construct a new facility for the Machias program – help by offering reduced rent, she said.

The town of Machias obtained a $250,000 Community Development Block Grant to help construct the Machias center and provide for some of the 30 percent local match that is required for the federal funds, she said.

“Calais makes no contribution,” she said.

Calais City Manager Jim Porter said Wednesday that WHCA is one of the many agencies or programs that request funding from the city, but that the City Council, in an attempt to control its budget, hasn’t funded any of those programs in recent years.

Prescott said her agency and board believe that quality child care is critical for Washington County to keep parents working or in school.

WHCA’s child care program employs 11 full-time people and several substitute child care workers, many of whom work full time to cover the 10 hours the center is open and provide one-on-one care for the growing number of special needs children, she said.

“We’ve worked so hard to build this program that it is heart-breaking to reduce staff ratios and hours of operation just because we can’t pay the bills,” Prescott said. “We’ve applied to United Way and we’ve gone back to CDBG, but the grants come for a short period of time and then they go.”

The Calais and Machias centers are among 15 licensed child care centers in Washington County, according to Robert Steinberg, a supervisor with the child care licensing unit at the Maine Department of Human Services.

Steinberg said the county’s 15 child care centers have a capacity of 478 children, and an additional 308 children can be served by the county’s 30 licensed child care homes. Washington County’s five licensed nursery schools can serve a total of 86 children, he said.