The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center has been granted 10 more years in its Gingerbread Lane facility, according to a new lease agreement reached this week.
The East Hampton School Board voted unanimously to approve the agreement with the district’s only day care center on Tuesday, with District Superintendent Adam Fine calling the negotiations and outcome “mutually very favorable.” The lease runs from June 1, 2025, through May 31, 2035.
The early-learning center, established in 1969 as East Hampton Day Care, was initially located on Cedar Street. It moved in 1995 to its current property, which is owned by the East Hampton School District. It was named for Eleanor Whitmore, one of its founders and a key supporter, in 2013, and celebrated 50 years of operations in 2019. For some time, the center also housed prekindergarten programs for the East Hampton and Springs School Districts, before those districts took their respective programs in house in recent years.
The new contract is largely the same as its two previous 10-year agreements, with one key change: the monthly rent. In the past, it was $1 per month; it will now be $1,000 a month. According to Mr. Fine, grant money from various sources is expected to offset the cost to the center of the rent hike.
Tim Frazier, the center’s executive director, assured Whitmore Center families this week that the change will not result in a tuition increase for them. Most families pay about $1,300 per month, lower than the average monthly cost of day care in New York State, which in 2022 ranged from $1,471 for toddlers and $1,872 for infants. About 20 percent of the center’s families are eligible for partial financial aid.
“It was an amicable and positive negotiation process, with the understanding that things had to change a little bit when looking at the school board’s responsibility to the taxpayers,” Mr. Frazier said. A 10-year lease, he noted, is the maximum length the state allows a school district to rent such a facility without going to the community for approval.
The process and outcome “honored the value of what has always taken place here, and the value of our program with young children,” Mr. Frazier added. “And the center values the support the school district has always given us.”
The Whitmore Center serves about 100 children, ranging from 18 months up to prekindergarten age.
Also on Tuesday, the school board heard a report from Cullen and Danowski, a Port Jefferson Station-based auditing firm charged with analyzing the district’s end-of-year finances. According to Jennifer Ditta, an accountant with the firm, East Hampton ended the 2023-24 school year with about $700,000 of the budget unspent, and placed into reserve accounts for repairs, capital improvements, and sick-day payouts for employees who are retiring (the “employee benefit and accrued liability” reserve, commonly called EBLAR).
East Hampton is compliant, Ms. Ditta said, with a state rule limiting school districts to retain 4 percent of the following year’s budget in surplus money.
The district received an “unmodified opinion” from the auditing firm, which is the best possible outcome. “Everything was as it should be,” said Ms. Ditta. “We feel the district is adequately funded and has good operations.”
The school board also turned its attention to a handful of minor issues in the auditors’ report, including “extra-classroom activity funds,” which support student clubs.
“It was noted that the ledgers are kept manually within Excel spreadsheets, which are susceptible to errors and manipulations,” the report states. “Individual clubs do not maintain individual ledgers that are compared to the central treasurer’s ledger to ensure the activity club is accurate.” The auditors also noted that “faculty advisors were not appointed by the Board of Education along with the stipend amount to be provided,” and that “extra-classroom activities are not reported to the Board of Education periodically and cash balances are not included in the treasurer’s monthly report.” The board approved an action plan to correct the issue.
The auditors also recommended the district update its “uniform guidance” policy (referring to how federal grant money is managed) and its purchasing policy, which the district has already done or is in the process of doing. Auditors also found inconsistencies in the amount of encumbrances (referring to dollars committed, but not yet spent, to certain expenses) and the amount of end-of-year surplus money reported in the prior year.
“The bottom line is, you want this [audit] done, and you want it at the highest level, because you don’t want to make any unintentional or intentional mistakes,” said Mr. Fine.
Finally, to mark School Board Appreciation Week, celebrated every October by the State Education Department, East Hampton students and teachers expressed gratitude toward the school board members, who volunteer their time to do what is often considered thankless work.
Students in the high school culinary arts program and hospitality club prepared a full dinner and dessert for the board in the new commercial teaching kitchen, which was completed in 2021. The middle school’s Bonettes, a group of advanced singers, sang “The Star Spangled Banner” and a medley that included “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World.” Elementary students shared comments via video, often drawing responses of “Aww” from the adults in the room.
“To think that I should be thanked for being part of the school board, it is me who would like to thank the rest of the school for being who they are,” said the longtime board member John Ryan Sr.