Working parents of 15 children may be without free YMCA child care soon, the result of a federal grant cut to the city.

Staff at the YMCA have learned that their child care scholarship program, which allows free day care for low-income parents struggling to get on their feet in new jobs, will be cut in full. The program, in previous years, received $40,000 to pay for the day care slots for 15 children.

Now staff at the YMCA will rush to find alternate money in the two weeks before the cut will take affect.

"It doesn't provide any window of time for those constituents that have been bettering their lives by being able to receive quality, licensed full-day child care," said Steve Ives, president and CEO of the Merrimack Valley YMCA. Ives said the money pays for 15 child care spots at the Methuen YMCA and has served about 30 families in the past year.

The cut comes while other community development programs, including the Methuen Arlington Neighborhood Inc. youth center and the Nevins Memorial Library's literacy volunteers program, received word they would face no cuts.

Mayor William Manzi unveiled the prospective cuts last week.

City Council could vote on them as soon as tonight when they meet at 7 p.m. in City Hall.

Methuen leaders learned earlier this year that an annual Community Development Block Grant of $600,000 would be cut to about $315,000. The drop was a result of improving economic conditions in the city, as well as not all of last year's grant money being spent.

Much of the cut in funding will mean reduced money for housing rehabilitation and grant management.

But Mayor William Manzi, along with staff in the city community development office, was forced to cut a group of community development programs from about $130,000 to $61,535.

Other cuts came from a Methuen Council on Aging program providing reduced price bus tickets to seniors and from the Methuen Arlington Neighborhood Inc. job training program.

Manzi called it frustrating to cut the child care funding, but reiterated that cuts had to come from somewhere.

"Any of the cuts we made here were unfortunate. They're a reality based on the allocations we got from the feds and the state," he said. "It's not because we don't value the Y. There just wasn't anywhere else to go with it."

Full text available at the Eagle Tribune