Nokomis II Child Care Center of The Village Family Service Center

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2015/08/13) */
On 7/23/15, the current site director told me that she received a call from a previous parent who wanted to enroll her child at our center once again. The site director and I looked up her account and found that her past due balance of $1,813...

had been turned over to collections on November 20, 2014. I told the site director to tell the previous client that we do not allow families to re-enroll if they leave us with an overdue balance or if they have been sent to collections...unless they were to take action and pay off their balance.
When the site director told the previous client this, client was extremely upset and demanded to speak with someone from the business office and to me (program director of centers). She called and talked with one of our accountants in the business office, and she also called me. Client told me that she had no idea she left the center still having a balance due. I told her that she must have known because each family's account statements are handed out in the parent "mailboxes" each week...which would have shown her the outstanding balance she had at the time that she quit coming to our center (and each week prior to that).
Client told me that she assumed that Child Care Assistance (CCA) covered her portion due. I told her that we never received payment from CCA. She told me that she gave her CCA billing forms to our previous site director to fax to the county, so if the forms didn't get turned in then it's the previous site director's fault. I reminded the client of how the process works...that it is the parent's responsibility to complete the CCA billing form, sign it and turn it in to their case worker at the county. Then Cass County always sends out a notification to the parent before they send the funding to the center for payment of fees. I explained, just as it happened with previous months when she received assistance from Cass County and the center was paid...she would have received notification from Cass County stating that a payment was going to be submitted to the center. Therefore, the fact that she didn't receive notification from Cass County should have indicated to her that our center never received payment from the CCA Program. I also doubted why the client did not question the previous director about faxing the billing form to the caseworker. Since she claimed that she gave the billing form to the director to fax to her case worker, why didn't she confirm if the form had been faxed or not with the director since CCA never covered August's fees. Instead, the client claims she gave the site director September's CCA billing form to fax also. More than two months pass and she didn't question the director when she knew that payments weren't being processed. I told her that it was her responsibility to check with both the center and Cass County to ensure the payment was taken care of. I also reminded the client that she signed a Provider/Client Contract that states, "If you are receiving subsidy payments from a government agency (such as Child Care Assistance), you are also responsible for paying the full amount of the fees under this contract if the government agency does not pay the provider for any reason. This amount includes the full weekly rate with the scholarship applied (if applicable)."
Client stopped bringing her child after the week of 10/6/14, and never gave the required two week notice. The previous site director attempted to call and leave messages with client to call her back, and messages were never returned. Previous site director finally sent final CCA billing form to the client on 10/13/14, along with a payment agreement to sign and return by the end of the month in an attempt to hopefully take care of the outstanding balance.
Nothing was ever returned and no child care payments were ever received for August or September fees due from CCA or the client. This client had a history from the beginning of services of failure to comply with required paperwork and filing of billing forms so that the center could be paid in a timely manner. The center accountant also reviewed the activity on the collection agency site, to find that numerous phone calls were made to the client. Those numerous calls to the client would have communicated to her that she had a balance due that she never paid.
After withdrawing from child care back in October 2014 and being sent to collections in November 2014, nothing was ever heard from the client until she called again in July 2015, stating she wanted to re-enroll her child. It is only after she was told she could not re-enroll her child that the charges are being contested and that she is making complaints against the center for care her child received back in April through October of 2014. Client told me she stopped bringing her child to the center because she wasn't happy with the care the child received. I told the client that this is the first that I've heard any of her grievances, and I apologized for the issues she understood to be true during the care received at our center. I also indicated that I can't address any issues (as the program director) unless they're brought to my attention. It is now 10 months after the fact and all this information was only mentioned once we simply told her our policy about not re-enrolling families if they previously left us with an unpaid balance. The fact that she wanted to re-enroll her child does not match with the complaints she made about the care that was provided.