BP’s Leo Augusta to close

Only three years after opening, Blooming Prairie’s childcare facility that had been gifted by a local businessman plans to cease operations.

Leo Augusta Children’s Academy announced last week that it plans to close in the near future, though no specific date has been given as staff members work with families to find alternate childcare options.

“It is with a heavy but honest heart that we share this update of closing the doors,” Leo Augusta’s Board of Directors said in a prepared statement. “This decision comes after years of passionate effort, tireless work and deep commitment to meeting the childcare needs of Blooming Prairie and surrounding communities.”

Up until last week, Leo Augusta had been serving 51 children, according to Amy Hinzmann, board chair of the nonprofit that operates the center. She said last summer the center had its highest enrollment at 86.

“That’s the sad thing, we don’t know where 51 kids will go,” Hinzmann said. She noted seven infants are currently being cared for at the center, and infants are generally the hardest to find openings for at centers.

She added families have been provided with a list of other area providers in Austin, Albert Lea and Owatonna in an effort to help them find replacement care.

The facility employs 15 full and part time employees, Hinzmann said.

The board said it operated the facility at a loss of $72,000 during the last fiscal year. Despite cutting the loss to $7,000 this year, the facility still faced a persistent negative cash flow.

“The economics don’t add up,” the board said. “Despite every effort to sustain operations, the challenges proved too large for a rural, standalone nonprofit to solve alone.”

The academy opened in June 2022 after the Craig Kruckeberg family donated money and the property on the north end of Blooming Prairie in excess of $1 million.

Hinzmann is frustrated with the demise of the facility. “We were given a building and land, yet it failed operationally,” she said. “We were given a gift where we floundered the ability to do something really cool in this community,” she said, adding that the nonprofit organization never picked up the momentum it needed to be successful.

Hinzmann partially blames the Blooming Prairie community for Leo Augusta’s fate. “We could have used the voices of our community to get where we needed to go,” she said. “We needed local (financial) backing.”

She pointed out how Warren, Minn., had a center on the brink of closing, but the community stepped up and passed a local tax earmarked for childcare.

Beyond Blooming Prairie’s inability to support the center, Hinzmann pointed out that there are other complex issues hindering childcare centers in general. She said the board reached out to local, county and state leaders over the past few years to advocate for sustainable childcare funding in rural Minnesota.

They specifically reached out to Sen. Gene Dornink, R-Brownsdale. However, in the end, they were essentially stonewalled.

“While he acknowledged the conversation, no actionable solutions, follow-up or resource guidance was provided,” the board said. “Despite repeated efforts to engage elected officials, no public funding or policy support materialized to help sustain LACA.”

Hinzmann admits the funding issue facing rural childcare is deep and needs to be addressed. Part of the problem, she said, is that childcare is not looked at as infrastructure within communities. “Childcare is just as important as roads and public schools,” she said, noting she believes childcare should receive funding from the state like public schools have for years. “The model is broken and has been broken for a while.”

Most childcare centers, Hinzmann said, are operating on razor-thin profit margins of only 1-2%. She said while there are usually grants available for infrastructure of centers like buildings and equipment, no help exists for the operational end of things.

“We knew it was going to be a challenge going into this, but we did not know it would be as big of a challenge as it has been,” she said.