Staff shortage imperils city's summer camp

Apr. 14—The city of Oneonta's public summer camp may get canceled this summer. At issue is whether the Oneonta YMCA, which runs the program, can recruit enough summer employees to staff it.

"We want to make it work. We know that there's a need," Sue Kurkowski, human resources and payroll administrator for the YMCA, said on Friday, April 8. She hesitated to say anything definitive about the summer schedule. "The worst position to be in is to say that we're going to run this six-week program, we're definitely going to do it, and then find that we don't have the staffing and have to cancel," she said.

In past years, a summer program has run for six weeks each July and August, in city parks and at the YMCA, open to children ages six to ten. Some years it has been a full-day program, other years just in the morning or afternoon. The city of Oneonta has subsidized the cost for city residents, so it only cost $10 per child per week.

The tentative plan for 2022 is to run the camp for four or five mornings a week, three hours a day, based at the former Center Street school with trips to the YMCA for swimming and gymnastics. The YMCA seeks to hire at least ten summer camp counselors, ages 18 or older, with childcare experience, leadership skills or lifeguard certification. That would provide enough staff capacity for about 75 children. The Y may hire workers ages 16 to 17, but for licensing reasons most staff need to be older.

Part of the difficulty with recruitment has been the low salary and part-time hours, Kurkowski said. Last year the job paid minimum wage, $12.50 per hour. The salary for 2022 has not yet been set, she said.

"Childcare is a requirement, successful programming like that, that's really inclusive, is absolutely essential," Oneonta Mayor Mark Drnek said during a phone interview. "It's a real need in the community, especially if we're going to be marketing ourselves to a demographic of young adults who are likely to have children."

Because of COVID-19, a smaller part-day program ran at the YMCA in 2020 and 2021. "We were very limited because of the COVID regulations, and licensing and permitting regulations," Kurkowski said. "You couldn't have more than 15 kids in a group. You couldn't share staff between the groups, you couldn't share kids between the groups. So it was very, very rigid on how we had to run it." This summer promises to be more flexible, if the camp operates, she said.

Drnek said he would like to see a full-day program, and has been promoting the camp to try to help the YMCA find staff. However, he doesn't think the city has the resources to assist in a more direct way. "In terms of the city's capacity to help, quite honestly, we're looking at a tough budget, where we kicked a lot of things down the road to try to find funding," he said. "It's pretty clear the city is maxed out."

The city used to spend about $35,000 per year to run the camp before management was passed to the YMCA, city Finance Director Virginia Lee estimated when the Common Council discussed the subject at their meeting April 5. In 2021, the city spent $30,000 to subsidize the YMCA program.

"We've tried having private programs the last ten years, and obviously it's not enough," said Council Member Dave Rissberger, D-Third Ward. "I think we need to seriously consider going back to having a municipally-run program." Having higher salaries is part of what enabled the city to keep the program running with the same staff from year to year, he said.

Mike Forster Rothbart, staff writer, can be reached at mforsterrothbart@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7213. Follow him at @DS_MikeFR on Twitter.