BY BRAD A. HODGES
SALISBURY POST

Many of Rowan County’s day-care businesses have begun raising questions about an agency charged with using state tax dollars to support programs for preschoolers.

Some accuse the Rowan Partnership for Children of withholding money meant to improve Rowan County’s 97 day-care homes and centers and provide their staff and children with training, health insurance and learning materials.

Those who oversee the agency say they’re only holding the businesses that benefit from such public money more accountable.

Concern over the Partnership for Children has peaked lately because several of Rowan County’s day-care operations didn’t receive money for improvements. Established in 1996, the Partnership for Children provides support for child and family services with money received from North Carolina’s Smart Start program. When local day cares found out last Friday which ones had received grants, some of those that didn’t began to ask why. About $52,000 in “quality enhancement grants” was distributed among the 30 day cares that applied. Twenty-two got some or all of what they requested.

Linda Peterson, who operates Kiddie Land Kindergarten in East Spencer, applied for $7,000 and got $300.

“We’ve got a lot of unanswered questions and we’re wanting to get some answers,” Peterson said. “We just wanted to know what happened with all the money.”

Concerned with financial questions of her own lately, Lori McFate resigned as president of the Rowan County Day Care Association. McFate requested money for the non-profit center she operates at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury. She received no money for landscaping a playground, but did for staff training.

McFate believes the deadline and criteria for the grants changed midstream.

“I did every single thing and met every single criteria,” she said.

Mitzi Redmond, operator of East Rowan Child Care Center, agreed. “I would like to see a specific list of criteria it is you want,” she told staff at the Partnership for Children this week. “The format is very vague.”

Leonard Wood, director of the Rowan County Health Department and treasurer for the Partnership for Children’s board, said that the partnership’s staff decided who won grants in the past. This time around, a board of volunteers did the job — and the criteria were stiffer.

“In the past, apparently people applied, they got them and somebody just said, ‘Let’s go on,’ ” said Wood, who wants policies written for how the grants should be distributed.

“We’re going to build more accountability. The board has developed a very strong position that we’re not going to just give money away... This board wants to make sure we’re doing the right thing when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.”

But the concern of day-care operators extends far beyond the grants.

Day care operators said they were promised health insurance for their employees with $372,300 in Smart Start dollars funneled through the Partnership for Children. Wood said that the agency couldn’t begin the program before the next fiscal year begins on July 1, so it had to return the money.

In all, the Partnership for Children is returning close to $1 million out of a total budget of $3.2 million, mostly Smart Start money. It is returning part of the money for services it provides, including salary supplements and retirement benefits for trained day-care workers and a dental clinic at the Health Department.

“I’ve had concerns for more than a year about how money’s being spent,” said Angela Hayworth, who runs a five-star day care in her house in Faith. “I don’t trust anything that they’re saying up there... They need to get qualified people in there that will use the funds for all the children in Rowan County.”

Wood said money went unused in some cases because day care operators didn’t qualify for it. But the agency also has suffered in the past year from a short staff.

When former executive director Sheila Simpson left, Amelia Watts agreed to replace her. But Watts, who retired as director of the local office of the N.C. Cooperative Extension, has only been able to work on a part-time basis. The agency also went from July to December last year without a planning and evaluation coordinator.

“Some of the programs just never got going,” Wood said. “There were a lot of promises made to the community that never were really carried through.”

“I think we were trying to do too much with too many vacancies in staff and as a result, we suffered. We got spread too thin,” said John Shaw, who is chairman of the board of directors for the Rowan Partnership for Children.

The agency has just hired Rose Mary Allen to lead the agency on a full-time basis. Allen, former director of a child service agency in Fayetteville, is now a consultant for the state government. Board members hope that Allen, who begins work on May 14, can help strengthen and motivate the partnership’s staff.

Shaw — who also retired as director of the Rowan County Health Department — said he’s concerned when the partnership has to return money to the state. But he also would rather see unused tax dollars help children in other communities than be wasted needlessly here.

“We will allocate all the funds that the state gives to us if we have applications for them,” Shaw said. “... We can’t dole out money just because we have it. That’s not responsible behavior.”