Low rent and high heat bills have been trade-offs
The future of Tracy’s Tots Day Care in Churdan is uncertain after owner Tracy Wilson received notification from her landlords, the Paton-Churdan school, of a proposed increase in rent starting in August. The current two-year rental agreement expires Aug. 1. School superintendent Rob Olsen proposed a new agreement with an increase in rent from $50 to $450 a month. Tracy’s Tots would pay 10 percent of the school’s water and trash charges, and the amount due would be required to be paid in full every month.
Wilson had been notified via email of the proposed changes. She was at the school board’s May 7 meeting to discuss the increases.
Wilson also operates day care centers in Carroll, Fort Dodge and Paton. She said the Churdan site has operated at a loss in recent years; revenue from the Carroll and Fort Dodge centers has covered the shortfall. The new agreement would add about $500 a month in cost for the Churdan location. “When I look at the changes in the rent… I don’t know that it can handle that…. My struggle is with the big heat bills in the winter time, and the summer,” she said. She serves teachers’ families and often has a very low enrollment during the summer.
Tracy’s Tots Day Care is located in a modular building east of the school in Churdan. The building was erected when the Paton school was closed in 1999. Within only a few years the added classroom space was no longer needed. Wilson told the board that she opened the day care center 11 years ago at the request of then superintendent Leonard Griffith. Griffith had suggested to Wilson that a day care center could help boost open enrollment and attract preschool students.
“He knew it would be tough to make a day care survive in a small town, and it has been tough, but that’s why some of the things are as they are,” Wilson explained. The school district covering the cost of water and garbage pickup for the center was a way to help out, Griffin told Wilson. Low rent was also a way to help out.
Wilson has paid the heat bills for Tracy’s Tots. In a four month period this past winter, she paid more than $3,000 for heat, she told the school board. Although the modular building has a separate electric meter, it’s on the school’s account. Wilson pays the school district, but apparently, it isn’t always timely.
Olsen told Wilson that the school can’t let her to carry a balance from month to month, as she has. “I know that maybe the situation that was presented at the time, but as a public entity, that’s not something we’re going to be able to continue to do. The past is what it was, but moving forward we have to be sure we’re doing it the proper way,” Olsen said.
According to Wilson, the electric heat is inefficient. “While the rent was what it was, I didn’t say anything about the heat. But if the rent is going up that way, I’ll tell you now, you’ve got to do something about the heating system out there,” she said.
New board member Jenn Maach reminded the board that it’s a landlord’s responsibility to make sure a building is efficient.
After discussion, the board agreed that electrical service to the building will be transferred and billed directly to Tracy’s Tots Day Care. An energy audit will be requested on the building prior to the June board meeting, and the board will at that time discuss what can be done to make the building more energy efficient.
The board had earlier in the meeting approved summer PPEL projects. After talking with Wilson, the board decided to postpone installing new carpet in two rooms until after any work (such as adding insulation) is done on the modular building.
The board is also looking to the future when increasing enrollment may create a need to use the building as classrooms again. “If we repurposed the building, we’d want to be sure it would work for us,” Maach said.
At the end of the discussion board member Deonne Reed asked Wilson, “If by chance we can’t get this figured out in some sort, do you think you will stay in the Churdan area?”
“If it stays the way it is now, with an increase in rent, I really doubt it. Financially, we won’t be able to support it. We lost money last year. I just absorb it, my company as a whole. I truly am not here for the financial benefit of it,” Wilson said.
“I think she was asking if you would do another one somewhere else in Churdan,” board member Troy Paup said.
“Oh, no. No. Small towns are tough,” Wilson answered.
