Community center faces closure

Allen Simon, who has worked in youth programs with some of Spokane’s poorest kids for the past nine years, could lose his job in the wake of city budget cuts announced by Mayor Jim West on Monday.

Simon coordinates the teen program at East Central Community Center, where kids from the neighborhood can spend time shooting hoops, lifting weights or playing pool.

“It keeps them away from alcohol,” said Tyler Smithgall, 16, one of about 75 youths who have attended the teen program on weeknights and weekend days this summer.

Simon, the recreation leader, said he’s been told he is going to be laid off in the next several weeks, and he wonders if the teen program will survive city budget cuts after he is gone.

City officials said the teen program has not been cut, but it is one of several city programs that may face the budget knife at the start of 2005.

“It’s going to be lame,” Smithgall said of the possibility of losing the teen program.

Simon faces another problem, one that officials at City Hall describe as a “personnel matter.”

On Sept. 25, 2003, Simon was overseeing a van full of children from the center’s before- and after-school care program, which has been licensed by the state as a day-care facility.

A child was left in the locked van unattended for approximately 42 minutes. Simon received a letter of reprimand on Oct. 17, and he acknowledged in an interview he made an error. He said he was distracted by another child who had run toward a waiting school bus and then failed to notice the 5-year-old child curled up on a seat asleep, according to city documents on the case.

State officials who investigated the incident have been seeking to revoke Simon’s ability to have contact with children in any state-licensed facility.

State Department of Social and Health Service inspectors found the center had failed to correct several procedural problems uncovered in the wake of the van incident. In February, the state revoked the city’s license. The revocation is pending an appeal by the city.

In a memo, Assistant City Attorney Milt Rowland advised city officials they are unlikely to win the appeal. Now, city officials are negotiating with the state on terms of an agreement to relinquish the day-care license.

On Monday, West announced he is cutting the before- and after-school care program from the city budget. Figures supplied by city budget officials showed a savings of $65,000 and a reduction of three to four full- and part-time employees. Simon, who earns $28,000 a year, is one of them, he said.

City officials said the administration has decided to end the center’s operation of licensed day care, in part because it appears the license is going to be revoked, but also to save money.

“We are working under the impression we will lose the license,” said Marlene Feist, city public affairs officer.

West has said the city should not be trying to provide services that other agencies are better equipped to provide. As a result, the city plans to seek proposals from outside agencies to continue providing licensed before- and after-school care services at the community center. The center will continue to offer other services, some of which are provided by non-city agencies, officials said.

In recent months, Simon has been reassigned from the before- and after-school care program to the neighborhood teen program, which is not licensed by the state. He said state officials don’t want any mixing between children in the licensed day-care facility and children who drop in from the neighborhood. He said the rule causes problems for employees and children alike since the kids often want to join one another’s activities and feel left out if they can’t.

Simon said he believes he is taking a fall for a program that had inadequate supervision.

“It got blown out of proportion,” he said. “I think it’s ridiculous. It’s not a budget issue. They are trying to make their problem go away by calling it a budget issue.”

Ultimately, Simon said, the kids from the neighborhood may be the ones who suffer.

A lot of kids in the neighborhood don’t have money to pay for having fun, said Matt Hew, 15. The teen program, he said, “is a benefit for everybody because it keeps you healthy and out of trouble.”

The possibility that Simon may lose his job was bad news for the kids. “If you’ve got a problem at home, (Simon) tries to help. If you’ve got other problems, he tries to help,” Hew said.