The directors of a planned child care center in Alburgh have ended their relationship with the town’s school board, a decision that has come amid disagreement between the two groups and created some uncertainty around the center’s funding and location.
Project leaders were planning to build the proposed facility, called the Alburgh Family Clubhouse, on the campus of the town’s K-8 school. The project also was slated to receive $250,000 in funding tied to the local school district.
But last month, the board of directors said they no longer plan to build the child care center on that site, following a decision late in October “to temporarily suspend” their relationship with the school board, per a letter to school officials.
Clubhouse board members said they felt the school board wasn’t moving quickly enough to address issues with a construction bid for the project, arguing that delays were only exacerbating the “desperate” need for child care in the town and region.
It was more feasible, they said in a statement, “to acquire private or public property in the town, unencumbered by the complexities of educational legal issues.”
Alburgh does not have a licensed child care center.
“The superintendent’s office felt that this was going to take a lot longer than anybody had anticipated,” said Martin Giuffre, a member of the Alburgh Family Clubhouse board. “And we wanted to be able to move forward at a more judicious pace than that.”
Michael Savage, the Alburgh School Board chair, said that since the project was set to be located on school grounds, the construction bid needed to comply with state Agency of Education guidelines.
But the bid did not meet all of those requirements, he said. One issue was that the bid was supposed to be conducted by the school board, but it was in fact conducted by the Northwest Regional Planning Commission, who’s been collaborating on the project.
Project leaders applied for a waiver from the Agency of Education that would have given them permission to go ahead with the existing bid, Savage said, but it was denied.
“It’s not like the bidding process caused the project to stop,” said Greta Brunswick, a senior planner with the Northwest Regional Planning Commission. “It was just that the relationship, I think, was challenged in trying to work through those issues.”
Savage said the school board spent almost $12,000 in attorney’s fees related to the clubhouse project, with the bulk of that paying for work on the waiver application.
The attorneys also drafted a memorandum of understanding that included the school board and the clubhouse, he said, though nothing was ever finalized.
The school board didn’t want to move forward with a memorandum of understanding until issues with the construction bid were addressed, Savage said. But the clubhouse board wanted that memorandum in order to continue working with the school board.
In response to a question, Savage said he disagreed with the clubhouse’s claim that the school board had delayed the project. Still, he said he could understand the board of directors’ frustration — the clubhouse project has been in the works for years.
“The board never dragged its feet in any way,” Savage said. “It was basically in the hands of the attorneys at that point. We couldn’t make any move forward unless the (Agency of Education) said we were good to go, and we never got that OK.”
By ending its partnership with the school board, the clubhouse also lost access to a $250,000 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission. With that taken into account, the project is funded at about $790,000 of the roughly $1 million it needs.
Giuffre said the clubhouse board will need to make up that loss, but he’s confident that amid all the momentum for supporting child care at the state and federal level, the directors will find the grant money they need.
The board also hasn’t secured a new site for the project, Giuffre said. He noted they do have “a long list,” though, of locations that they have been vetting.
Giuffre said he hopes construction could begin within the next six months.
Savage emphasized that even though the school board is now out of the process, it continues to support the project. In fact, Giuffre said, it’s almost inevitable that the two groups will work together again once the facility has been built.
“It really isn’t possible to run the child care center,” Giuffre said, “without being in a partnership with the school.”
