Urbandale Child Care Center Closes After Picketing

An Urbandale child-care center whose employees picketed on Monday was closed on Tuesday. 

A sign on the door to  said the center would be closed for the rest of the week "due to a walkout yesterday."

The sign directed parents to take their children "to the Jordan Creek location." The company's website does not list a second location, but it lists two mailing addresses, the center location in Urbandale and 720 S. 68th St. in West Des Moines.

A man and a woman who answered the door at the Urbandale center at about noon Tuesday said the owner, Theresa Mulhern, was not there. They were taking small bins of child-care supplies out of the business and putting them in a pickup truck.

According to the sign, until Imagination and Education Station has "adequate staffing, no part-time, drop-in or day-care assistance families" will be served.

"Due to the state of Iowa billing system and pay rates, which are not adequate to cover center expenses for children, we will no longer be accepting child-care assistance payments...

"We feel everyone has a right to great day care and we have struggled for months to be able to make it work in our budget," the sign read.

Mulhern was not immediately available. No one was answering at the two telephone numbers listed on the sign Tuesday afternoon.

According to the Des Moines Register, about 45 center employees picketed throughout the day. The employees interviewed said they had not been paid last week. It was not the first time, the center had trouble paying employees, teacher Allison Little told the Register.

She said late paychecks or bounced checks began occurring last winter. Workers also said that Mulhern was not honest with them about the reasons.

The newspaper said that Mulhern released a statement blaming an in-house clerical error that caused a one-business day delay in the company’s ability to issue payroll.

“We notified all interested parties, including the necessary government organizations and we were insured that the measures we taking were sufficient,” the release stated.