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Missing suitcase may provide clues as to what caused financial shortfall at Potsdam day care center

Posted 1/27/15

By CRAIG FREILICH POTSDAM -- The Building Blocks Day Care board president said Tuesday it is too early to predict when the center might reopen, but a missing suitcase may help clarify how a financial …

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Missing suitcase may provide clues as to what caused financial shortfall at Potsdam day care center

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- The Building Blocks Day Care board president said Tuesday it is too early to predict when the center might reopen, but a missing suitcase may help clarify how a financial shortfall caused its closing.

Halimatu Mohammed said that the recovery of the suitcase containing checks and financial paperwork, as well as a missing laptop, could go a long way to helping the board understand what the financial picture of the center actually is.

“There were a lot of bills not paid,” Mohammed said, a fact that came to her attention when the new center director, Marianne Jadlos, came on board earlier this month, replacing previous director Marlene Pickering.

The suitcase went missing late in December or early in January, said Mohammed, an adjunct professor at Clarkson University.

“There were checks, paperwork, a laptop” among the items in the suitcase, she said.

“So there is some money somewhere, and a lot of paperwork we need to process to get paid,” including from reimbursements from the Department of Social Services.

The missing suitcase has been reported to state police, but the trooper believed to be handling the case could not be reached for comment Tuesday. A member of the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) said Monday there is no active investigation underway by them.

Board president Mohammed said she and other board members were unaware of the immediate situation until Jadlos informed them this month. “Basically we are still trying to find out exactly what’s going on.”

The center moved not along ago from Potsdam school district property on Lawrence Avenue to a facility at the rear of Snell’s Office Complex north of the village.

Center director Jadlos, who began work Jan. 12, said it became clear to her soon after she started that the center did not have enough cash on hand to meet payroll that week, and “what we had coming in would not support” continued operation, so the board voted to close the center temporarily until the situation could be resolved. She said she and board members came up with enough cash to pay employees, but that it was unlikely they would be able to meet the next week’s payroll.

“The bottom line is that there are bills to be paid and until those bills are paid it will be difficult to reopen,” said Mohammed.

About a dozen employees have been laid off and the parents of about 60 children are struggling to make other arrangements for their kids.

Mohammed has concerns as president of the center’s board of directors, with her responsibility to the employees and to the parents and the children who are cared for at the center.

“I hope and pray nobody loses a job because they don’t have anyplace to watch their kids while they go to work.”

In this regard, she is speaking not only as board president but as a parent with a child enrolled at the center, and as a colleague to many other parents with children enrolled at the center.

“We’ve all been affected, other board members too,” she said. “At the moment I’m looking for a babysitter. It’s hard to find good day care.

“This is community-based day care. With good management we’ll be okay. We’ll be meeting every week looking for ways to come up with some kind of solution. We’ll be working very hard with Marianne and hope to come up with something sooner or later.

“It breaks my heart not to have straightforward answers. It’s important that whatever we do, the board and the director are on the same page,” she said.

“Once we meet next week we might have some idea when we can reopen.”