Contact: Parker Bryant, parkerb@greenecountychildcare.org
My name is Parker Bryant and I serve on the board of Greene County Childcare Center, a 501(c)3 organization providing affordable childcare to the community. We are currently undergoing a period transition where the board has seen some significant turnover, including in key financial positions, as well as a contracted accountant (who also happens to be the former board president & treasurer) who hasn't been as communicative and open as I would have hoped. We are also coming out of a period when covid related grant funds really kept the school afloat during a period of declining enrollment and increased prices/expenses. To get the school through this challenging period and set us up for the future, I was hoping you would be able to point us in the right direction for some resources that could assist us in any of the following areas:
- Budget Forecasting. From the very high level insight we have been given, it appears that we have between 6-12 months of runway before we run out of money. The most likely course of action would be raises in tuition. We would like assistance to model different scenarios where tuitions are raised incrementally over time to reduce the burden on our families while leveraging our reserves vs a one off increase at a given time. We would also want to be cognizant of the very real possibility that staff wages are going to have to increase in the near future to both retain current staff as well as recruit new hires.
- Building a Budget. To be candid, I get the impression that a true budget has not been used in some time. I think it would be a good exercise with the Board, Director, and Assistant Director build a budget from bottom up.
- Analysis/Explanation of Quickbooks. As previously mentioned, the schools current accountant was the former President and Treasurer of the board. When she left the board, she continued on as a hired contractor to run the school's books. I would like there to be more transparency for the board and the director into the overall financial situation and spending for the school. Part of this would be an explanation of how this QBs instance is setup for our school and part would be a look back to make sure that things are being entered correctly.