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Menlo Park parents are facing higher fees at a city-run child care program, part of the City Council’s measures to address a structural deficit. Tuition is set to increase 11% over two years for preschool and day care programs at Menlo Children’s Center. This comes after a 5% hike in tuition earlier this year.
“I just truly don’t know what else to do at this point,” Vice Mayor Jennifer Wise said during the Aug. 25 meeting.
Menlo Children’s Center provides early childhood education at its Burgess Park child care center for children ages 18 months to 5 years. While designed to be market-rate, the center’s programs are often much more affordable than those of other local providers.
However, the child care center is not cheap for the city to operate. For the most recent fiscal year, which spanned July 2025 through June 2026, the center budgeted $2.5 million in expenses with revenue of only $1.3 million — a cost-recovery rate of 51%. City policy aims for its revenue to cover between 70% and 100% of expenses.
With the city trying to bridge a structural deficit, Menlo Park has been raising fees for city services across the board. In April, the City Council approved raising a myriad of fees including increasing tuition for Menlo Children’s Center programs by 5% starting July 1, with the fee increases expected to generate an additional $4 million in annual revenue.
The City Council on Aug. 25 directed city staff to prepare to raise preschool fees enough to cover 70% of the center’s operating costs, an estimated 11.2% increase from current rates for toddlers and preschoolers. The increase will be spread out over two years, with one hike starting in July 2027 and another starting in July 2028. The City Council still has to hold a formal vote on the fee schedule.
If approved, the monthly cost for the toddler program would be $2,912, up from $2,618, and $2,377 for the early preschool and preschool programs, up from $2,137.
If the city sought to recover 100% of the center’s operating costs, tuition would need to increase by more than 50%, to $4,160 for the toddler program and $3,396 for the preschool programs, according to city staff.
Menlo Children’s Center after-school programs are not slated for further fee increases beyond the 5% approved in April that took effect July 1.
Programs at Belle Haven Child Development Center receive a state grant to cover expenses, excluding administrative overhead, and have not raised tuition.
‘It’s really easy to say yes’
While councilmembers largely agreed on increasing fees to cover 70% of Menlo Children’s Center’s costs, there was debate over whether to spread the increase over two years or three.
Councilmember Jeff Schmidt encouraged his colleagues to consider spreading the increase over three years in light of the recent 5% hike, but Mayor Betsy Nash said she was too concerned about the city’s budget to wait that long.
As a compromise, Councilmember Drew Combs suggested that the new increases start next July so families that budgeted for the school year would not face a surprise increase. Schmidt and Nash both supported that idea.
“It’s really easy to say yes and it’s really hard when it comes to then looking at the budget,” Nash said.
Combs deferred to the plurality of councilmembers — Wise and Nash — that supported spreading the increase over two years starting in July 2027. Councilmember Cecilia Taylor, who had left the council meeting hours earlier, did not weigh in.
Future of the Children’s Center
But the future of the Menlo Children’s Center is murky. Following a state mandate for school districts to offer universal transitional kindergarten, the center saw a drop in enrollment among transitional kindergarten-eligible children. After a restructuring, the child care center is nearly fully enrolled, with 52 of 60 slots filled and the remaining spots expected to be filled by the end of October.
City staff said the council also could consider longer-term restructuring, such as focusing only on younger children and phasing out care for preschoolers altogether or decreasing the number of programs for all age groups. The council asked city staff to review the price of city-run programs and compare them to competing programs.
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