NEWARK -- The Newark Campus Child Development Center will close June 30, Central Ohio Technical College and Ohio State University-Newark announced Wednesday.

The closure was prompted by falling state revenue for the next fiscal year, according to a news release.

The center has provided child care for campus and community members since 1978, and OSU-N Dean and Director Bill MacDonald said the two institutions are disappointed they can't continue the operation.

"COTC and Ohio State-Newark regretfully can no longer sustain the fiscal drain of operating a child development center," he said in the release.

In 2010, the center operated at a $140,000 deficit, and has long run at a deficit.

"The campus had continued to support the CDC because it offered a quality service that campus leadership deemed important to offer," said David Brillhart, COTC vice president for business and finance and OSU-N senior fiscal officer. "With the state's current planned cuts to higher education budgets, however, we are forced to critically evaluate the investment of our resources to best support our missions of teaching and learning."

The center enrolls 60 to 65 children between 18 months and 12 years every day. It is open to campus employees, students and community members. It also serves as a training facility for the colleges' education programs.

"At this difficult time, we want to express that this decision is the result of very careful consideration and scrutiny," COTC President Bonnie Coe said in the release. "The CDC has served the campus and community extraordinarily well, and our heartfelt thanks go out to the CDC staff for their work and dedication. In the end, however, our first priority and obligation must be to our educational missions."

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