There are few things that just about everyone agrees upon, and one is that the CCTI Day Care Center is appreciated.

"It offers affordable quality day care in Jim Thorpe," said Bridget Johnston, who depends on the center to care for their 15-month-old son while she and her husband work full-time jobs as domestic relations enforcement officers for Carbon County. "If it closes, we would not have child care. I was hoping to use the facility until my son was 12 years old for before- and after-school care. My parents both work full time and my in-laws are over an hour away.""We have a 23-month-old that is currently in the center," said Jeff Day. "I have a landscaping business in Jim Thorpe and my wife works in Jim Thorpe for the Postal Service. I cover a territory from Lake Harmony through Palmerton, so I could be anywhere the next day. It's a benefit to have the center in town.""I have two kids in the center right now," said Tom Priore. "My son Christian who is 3, and my son Max who is 5 and will be leaving for kindergarten. I would be disappointed if the center closed. The service and quality of the program is very good. The teachers all have a massive amount of experience.""It is definitely a quality program," Dave Reinbold agreed.On April 22, Reinbold, the administrative director of the Carbon Career & Technical Institute, which includes the day care center, sent a letter to parents of children at the center that read, "We regretfully announce that the CCTI Day Care Center will no longer be in business after Aug. 23, 2013." The closing date has since been extended to Dec. 31.In the letter, Reinbold wrote, "We are proud of the quality of care and service that we have provided our patrons over the years, but unfortunately we cannot sustain any monetary shortfall generated by the day care operation, building maintenance, or any other programs or services that operate at a loss."The parents' organization does not want the center to close, and they are afraid that if it closes, they will not be able to find comparable, if any, day care in Jim Thorpe in the immediate future.They find problems with the assertion that the center is a money loser. They feel that the only reason it has been losing money is that CCTI has been ignoring the center's finances."They haven't raised rates in five years," said Priore. "They tell us that in the last three years, there was a deficit of $3,000, $6,000 and $17,000. If they had increased the basic rate by $15 from $130 per child per week to $145 per child per week, with an average of 40 children, that would raise well over $30,000 a year by itself."In addition to the center's operating costs, Reinbold noted that the building requires at least $200,000 in maintenance, with replacement of the roof being estimated at $150,000.The parents' group feels that if the weekly rates were increased by $15, then the increase of over $30,000 a year in revenue could budget about $10,000 toward operating costs and $20,000 toward building maintenance, which would repay the cost of the new roof and associated repairs over 10 years.So the question is why is CCTI closing a beloved day care center?Reinbold, representing the CCTI Joint Operating Committee, a committee of representatives from the five Carbon County school boards, explains that the decision is strictly financial because the center is losing money.The parents offered a plan to bring the center into financial balance. Or did they?"We brought that up at the CCTI board meeting after we received the letter," Priore said."They said that was something they would consider," said Johnston."But they voted to close," Priore added.Discussing the matter with the parents and Jerry Strubinger, the JTASD representative board member of the CCTI Joint Operating Committee, there seems to be several factors underlying the decision to close the center operations.The first is the loss of money at the current operating rates. The second is the cost of maintenance on the building. The third is that some of the representatives of the five school district's on the board don't want to support a day care center, which principally attracts Jim Thorpe residents. The fourth is a desire to sell the building to get rid of a maintenance headache. The fifth is a desire to get out of the day care business.Which raises the question: How did they get into the day care business?In the mid-1980s, the predecessor to CCTI, the Carbon County Area Vo-Tech, received a nine-month grant to fund a pilot program to help high school dropouts get their GED's. To help them return to school, the program funded a day care.When the grant ended, first the Carbon County Action Committee, and then the Carbon County Office Of Aging took over the day care center, and in the 1990s, The Carbon County Area Vo-Tech took it over and ran it as a public day care. The Carbon County Area Vo-Tech still owns the building, although the operation of the center is under the direction of the CCTI-JOC.Sadly, the center is like a child without a parent. No one wants to operate it not CCTI, most likely not the Jim Thorpe Area School District, and most likely not the parents. Starting a new day care center is a run of the gauntlet with a myriad of laws and regulations that typically take a year to meet.Meanwhile, the building will be sold, the teachers will be out of work, the parents will have to find a day care in Jim Thorpe or commute to another town, or arrange for a member of the family to stay home and not work.As an example, Priore fears that if he and his wife cannot find suitable day care, she may have to work part-time at her job as a clinical trial coordinator for the National Institutes of Health. If she works part-time, she may lose her health care benefits. Since he is self-employed, they would have to pay thousands of dollars for health insurance.When the Priores left Washington, D.C. to move to Northeastern Pennsylvania, they came to Jim Thorpe because it offered a high quality of life part of which was an excellent day care center. Now they wonder if they can continue to remain in the area. Now they wonder if young middle-class taxpaying families will be attracted to Jim Thorpe if it no longer has first-class day care.