The Ames City Council will not renew its contract with Children’s Services of Central Iowa, and the Government of the Student Body is following suit.

President T.J. Schneider said GSB won’t be funding Children’s Services of Central Iowa for the next fiscal year because it “won’t serve students well.”

The Ames City Council debate ended with a denial of funding, and an additional motion to provide funding for the three months died on the table, resulting in no action and no renewal of contract.

Children’s Services of Central Iowa Director Tammy Toszegi told the council if the agency wasn’t allowed three months’ funding to begin to meet Ames Social Services Evaluation Team’s (ASSET) criteria, children would have to go elsewhere for care and parents would have three working days to find it.

“If we don’t receive these funds, we will lose 68 children,” Toszegi said Tuesday.

Lundt said if the agency cuts 68 slots for children, it will lose its funding from the Department of Human Services and regular fees from parents, putting them even farther in the red.

“CSCI doesn’t receive funds from the DHS for children,” Lundt said. “For each one of the programs they have, the providers have a sliding-fee scale based on parents’ income and the number of kids in a family. Low-income families pay what they can and DHS pays the rest. DHS doesn’t have a contract with CSCI. Their contract is with the family.”

Toszegi could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Schneider and GSB Finance Director David Boike came to the decision to cut funding to the non-profit agency after speaking with ASSET members and looking over the child services’ financial statement.

ASSET looks in depth at issues with agencies such as Children’s Services of Central Iowa and makes recommendations to its members – GSB, Ames and the United Way of Ames and Story County, Schneider said.

GSB funded the children’s agency due to ASSET recommendations, who later said GSB should look deeper into the issue.

“It’s one of those decisions that’s hard to make,” he said.

“Their finances haven’t been in order, there appears to be problems in their organizational structure and they don’t seem to be where we want them to be. We feel we shouldn’t use student dollars to fund an enterprise that is faltering.”

“This is something we ultimately decide – whether it is a good place or not to spend money and [ASSET] assists all groups in its membership on these decisions,” Schneider said.

Schneider said there are other places on campus for students to take their children.

Schneider said the funds given to Children’s Services of Central Iowa can now be used elsewhere to help students.

“We can use these funds to in other areas and we’re not sure where yet,” Schneider said. “ASSET will help direct where those funds should go. Hopefully we’ll get better services at around the same price.”

GSB allocates approximately $7,000 a year for Children’s Services of Central Iowa, Schneider said.

Ames would have given $52,000 per year to the agency but will no longer be because of a lack of contract, said Sheila Lundt, assistant to the Ames city manager.

However, the lack of a contract doesn’t mean the city is finished working with Children’s Services of Central Iowa, she said.

“What this means is there will be no reimbursement for services after July 1,” Lundt said. “That’s not to say that there couldn’t be a contract at a later point. ASSET laid out criteria they want CSCI to meet and the council wants to see that it will be met.”

The criteria that ASSET wants the Children’s Services of Central Iowa to develop include a strategic plan assessing the agency’s strengths and weaknesses, with measurable goals and specific targets for improvement, contracting for a fiscal year 2002-2003 audit to be presented with their budget and consideration of diversifying their board to provide necessary balance and oversight, Lundt said.

“We’ve had concerns about their financial positions, we’ve had concerns about their loan debt, we’ve had concerns about the diversification of board members who appear to be parents of children at the CSCI centers,” she said.

“Until we feel confident in those areas as well as enrollment, we can’t allocate those funds. The city needs to make sure that the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.”

The Ames City Council debated for more than an hour Tuesday evening on whether or not to provide Children’s Services of Central Iowa with three months of support.

Russ Cross, council member at-large, said he had doubts about the agency correcting itself in time.

“This a sensitive issue,” Cross said. “But it is very difficult for an organization – any organization, – to right these kinds of financial problems in that amount of time. I question the ability of CSCI to meet this criteria in 90 days.”

Lundt said Ames tries to provide for low-income citizens whenever they can, but the city must be responsible when choosing how.

“The council believes that it is an important part of quality of life to provide social support to citizens,” Lundt said. “We want to see that those services are available to people who might not be able to pay because of low income.”