Bend Park and Rec could cut 25% of children from Kids INC program if it cannot fill 20 positions

About 1,200 kids enrolled and 300 more on waitlist this year

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- On Tuesday, the Bend Park and Recreation District sent an e-mail to more than 1,000 families, informing them their child might not be enrolled in the after-school Kids INC. program due to a staffing shortage, unless they can find more staff to hire.

The e-mail stated there were "30 unfilled positions" and that the park district "will be forced to reduce the number of children that we are able to serve,” if they can not hire more employees. And they asked parents to help find and recruit workers for the park district

Boettner told NewsChannel 21 that about 30 families have voluntarily pulled their kids out of the program. If they can not hire at least 20 people, 25% of the near 1,200 children enrolled in the program will be dropped.

“Right now, we are at a critical point where if we don’t get enough staff, we’ll have to reduce the level of service," Boettner said. “Never before in my career have we had trouble hiring like we do now.”

The park district has held a number of hiring events and has increased pay for some positions by about 10%.

“Having to make that tough decision that we might not be able to provide for them is not something we take lightly, and all of us in our recreation department top down are pretty dismayed at how we are going to fix this. Because the last thing we want to tell families is we will not be able to take care of your child because we are short staffed.”

The park district will be hosting a job hiring event Thursday at the Larkspur Community Center at 4 p.m.

The Kids INC program runs throughout the school year at 14 Bend elementary schools.