Deadline looms for Head Start

Program, council at odds over budget

Program, council at odds over budget

The local Head Start program's board has until month's end to reconcile differences with its policy council or risk losing $12 million in federal funding for next year.

The rift between the two entities over Head Start's budget will not affect services for the roughly 1,650 children served by the Moncks Corner-based program in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties, but it could affect who manages the funds, said Val Patrick, chairwoman of the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Counties Head Start and Early Head Start Policy Council.

The program is run by Berkeley-Dorchester Counties Economic Development Corp., which has run into troubles in the past with federal officials.

The program is run on the federal level by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which briefly yanked its contract with Berkeley-Dorchester Counties EDC in early 2006, citing safety problems, crowded classrooms and playgrounds and lack of communication with parents. The local agency said it corrected all of the concerns and by November 2006 was allowed to keep receiving federal monies. Recent federal reviews of the agency have generally been positive.

The policy council is made up of parents and community members. Under its bylaws, the policy council must approve all funding applications for Head Start.

The policy council insists it will not sign off on the $12 million in federal funding until the managing agency's board of directors addresses a lengthy list of concerns.

The disagreement first surfaced in October, when the policy council contacted media outlets to apply pressure to the executive board to address their concerns by Dec. 31, the deadline for the policy council to approve the budget.

The two boards met jointly in December to work on the budget.

"It wasn't fruitful," Patrick said. "We started working on the budget and started asking questions of the management staff. That's when we realized that the management staff was not part of the development of the budget. They couldn't answer any questions about amounts itemized for different items. Federal guidelines say the budget must be developed by key management staff and the policy council of Head Start. We didn't have the information we needed to develop the budget to consider it for approval."

The regional office of Health and Human Services extended funding to the agency until Jan. 31 to give the two sides time to work things out, Patrick said.

Patrick said she sent an e-mail on Jan. 6 to Willie Mitchell, head of the Head Start board, to set up another meeting but she has not heard anything back from him.

Mitchell, who said he has been sick lately, said HHS has two options if the policy council has not signed off on the budget by Jan. 31.

If it finds that the policy council has been negligent in approving the budget, then HHS will approve the funds for the Head Start program. If it finds that the board has not given the policy council sufficient information, then it won't approve the funds.

In that case, Patrick said the regional HHS office would determine who would run the program.

The HHS office in Atlanta referred questions about the dispute to its Washington office. Calls to them were not returned.

"We are trying to make sure that we budget enough money that's needed to operate the program in the areas that need it," Patrick said. For example, "we believe there should be more in classroom supplies."

Mitchell said he's hopeful of a positive outcome. He asked the board's vice chairman, Levy Berry of Hanahan, to work out the problems with the policy council.

Berry said meetings with policy council members began Tuesday, when The Post and Courier started asking questions about headway being made to avert losing the funds.

"We are working out the differences right now," Berry said. "There have been several meetings with the policy council in small groups. We are working on whatever snags there might have been on questions there might have been about the budget. They had some questions on some of the line items. They wanted to have those questions answered so they can understand them."

Former policy council Chairwoman Gloria McNeill-Uwalor confirmed Friday that discussions have begun taking place with the board but a joint meeting has not been scheduled.