Human Services News

From: Public/Private Ventures.

Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and written in collaboration with The Finance Project, this report reviews a variety of studies conducted since 1993 in an attempt to gain a broad sense of what it costs to run out-of-school-time programs.

Among the report's findings: there is a lack of up-to-date information about program costs; researchers and practitioners do not have a standard methodology for estimating costs; selected cost studies suggest wide variation across programs - from $449 to $7160 per child per year; much of this variation is attributable to differences in sample size, how costs are calculated and whether in-kind resources are taken into account; and not much is known about the cost implications of investments to improve the quality of out-of-school-time programs.

This report is part of a larger study being conducted by P/PV and The Finance Project (with support from The Wallace Foundation) to asses the costs of out-of-school-time programs. A second report, including a comprehensive guide to the costs of various types of programs, will be published in 2007.

Many studies focus solely on operating costs, so they do not take into consideration the startup, expansion, or system-building costs These cost elements are particularly important to understand the full costs of developing and growing out-of-school-time Lack of information on key program characteristics.

Although early education researchers typically measure the quality of services using classroom characteristics, the cost of these services usually is measured guidelines to help researchers collect cost data at the classroom level in four categories: food, labor, materials and supplies, and Non-Classroom Costs.

The author outlines the limitations of school budget accounting systems for accurately measuring the cost of preschool facilities and recommends the involves listing the ingredients, or program cost components, and assigning a value to Revenues.