Kindy faces $28,000 shortfall

Jill Oliver. Photo / Supplied

Trinity Kindergarten just manages to keep its books balanced each year, but looming funding cuts will leave the non-profit organisation nearly $30,000 in the red if it doesn't increase fees or reduce service quality.

It's a tough position for the Pakuranga kindy to be in and a decision is yet to be made on what it will do.

"We just basically scrape in the black at the end of the year," said manager Jill Oliver. "With the new figures we will lose approximately $30,000 worth of funding, so in effect we will be $28,000 in the red, which I don't think is going to impress the bank very much at all.

"Of course we have to do something - at the end of the day early childhood is a business as well and you have to do something which will probably be passed on to the parents unfortunately, one way or another."

One possibility is increasing fees by up to $25 a week for each of its 70 children.

Another option is to make one of the five fully qualified teachers redundant, which Mrs Oliver is not keen on.

"It's not an option we want, we value all of our teachers. The Labour Government encouraged us to train our teachers ... so we have done all that, we've gone up to 100 per cent funding."

To lose a teacher would mean reducing the teacher-to-student ratio and increasing teachers' workloads. Replacing a qualified teacher with a cheaper, unqualified staff member would potentially reduce the centre's service quality.

The centre is also considering charging for events or excursions.

"We can't cover those things. It's impossible when you lose $30,000. We will have to look at all those things and take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and somehow recover $30,000.

"It's just horrible, it devalues everything we have strived for over the last 10 years to get us in this position."

Mrs Oliver said the centre's board of trustees would meet soon to consider its options.