At left, Gwen White, executive director of the Center for Community and Family Services, Compton.
UPDATE, January 13, 2012: Over 50 child care providers and parents who have not received payment from the Center for Community and Family Services, protested yesterday outside the agency's headquarters in Compton. The agency is an alternative payment program, contracted by the state to determine eligibility of families for subsidized child care (e.g., under Stages 2 and 3 of CalWORKs), and make payments to authorized providers. The protesters left complaints pinned to the lock doors of the agency (photo below).
UPDATE, October 15, 2011: Janette Williams, reporting for the Pasadena Star-News on the closure of 15 Head Starts serving 1,397 children and operated by the 41-year-old Center for Community and Family Services, (founded in 1969 under President Johnson's poverty program funding; at the time, the agency was known as PCHNO -- the Pasadena Commission on Human Need & Opportunity; the CCFS also operates child development centers for the state):
As soon as all 15 Head Start sites in Pasadena, Altadena and Glendale re-open under interim management, federal officials said their focus will be on the former operators' $5.1 million budget deficit and the alleged financial irregularities that led to the program's abrupt closure.
Kenneth Wolfe, spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families, said at least some Center for Community and Family Services programs closed on Oct. 6 may be re-licensed as early as Monday.
"Our priority is, and has been, the transition, and getting CDI in there, and helping them continue services as quickly as possible," Wolfe said, referring to Head Start's Community Development Institute (CDI) National Interim Management Contract.
However, White said earlier that CCFS would continue to operate 78 low-income housing units in three developments in Pasadena, plus Rainbow Family Child Care.
CCFS, which has been in Pasadena for 40 years, reported a total budget of $59.1 million in its 2009 tax filing, down by about $1.6 million from 2008.
The report showed a deficit that spiked to more than $2.5 million at the end of 2009, up from a $44,864 deficit at the start of the year.
The 2009 tax filing also reports three CCFS staffers earning more than $100,000: [CCFS executive director Gwen] White, $166,000; [finance director Jerry] Robinson, $157,500; and human resources director Charlene Lewis, $115,000....
UPDATE, October 12: Star-News reporter Janette Williams writes:
A federal audit of the now-shuttered Head Start program run by the Center for Community and Family Services will show what appears to be "gross financial mismanagement" at their 15 Pasadena, Altadena and Glendale sites, Administration for Children and Families spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said Wednesday.
"The organization has been having financial difficulties and the audit that ended through June 30, 2010 showed that they had liabilities that exceeded their assets by $5.1 million," Wolfe said from ACF headquarters in Washington, D.C.; ACF is a division of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.
The annual direct federal grant to the CCFS Head Start and Early Head Start programs was $12 million...
October 6: The Pasadena Star-News reports this morning that the 15 Head Start programs -- in Pasadena, Altadena, and Glendale -- operated by the Center for Community and Family Services have "abruptly closed their doors...leaving hundreds of parents and teachers stunned by the sudden shutdown."
Gwen White, executive director of the agency, "decline to give a reason for the closure, but said it was 'not financial.''
"There are some other concerns. There are a lot of things it could be other than financial," she said, including "the relationship with ACF," the federal Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.
"Or it could be that we own some sites, and we're negotiating with them on whether to sell the site," White said.
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