Questions Persist About Low Enrollment at a Publicly Subsidized Preschool

Leslee Barnes, the former director of preschool and early learning at Multnomah County, resigned last week after a state investigation revealed her preschool had collected $833,494 from the state to serve just nine children.

In the wake of her resignation, questions remain about how Barnes could own a preschool identified by state auditors as “wasteful” while overseeing the county’s universal-preschool initiative.

The dollars allocated to Village Childcare Enterprises LLC, the preschool Barnes owns, came from Preschool Promise, a state program serving low-income children. Barnes had blamed some of the chronic enrollment struggles of her preschool on Early Learning Multnomah, a state-contracted nonprofit organization.

ELM, run by United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, is one of 16 early learning hubs across Oregon. Since 2020, these hubs have overseen Preschool Promise enrollment and eligibility, alongside “coordinated enrollment activities,” according to the state’s investigation. On Tuesday, Barnes told WW that when it became apparent that ELM was not helping her reach better enrollment numbers, she willingly adjusted the number of Preschool Promise seats at her school from 33 to 20.

The Secretary of State’s investigation had flagged hub performance as a factor for providers receiving grants and then reporting low enrollment. “The hub is critical to a provider’s success in enrolling children,” it reads. “We heard from program staff that Hubs vary in how well they support providers with their enrollment, pointing to significant challenges with the Hub in Multnomah County.”

WW was not immediately able to reach Early Learning Multnomah on Tuesday for comment in its initial story on Barnes. But Kelly O’Lague, president and CEO of United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, disputed Barnes’ comments in a Thursday statement.

“Our role is to guide families through the application and referral process, while admissions and overall program administration—including provider contracts, slot allocation, and funding—are managed by the state and individual providers,” O’Lague says.

That means, O’Lague says, that while ELM helps connect families to preschool providers, the group “does not make specific decisions on their behalf.” In other words, the hub makes the introduction between families and providers, but doesn’t assign seats—the families and providers have to seal the deal.

That doesn’t solve the riddle of whether the hub didn’t introduce enough families to Village Childcare, or if Barnes’ preschool failed to take advantage of the opportunities the hub provided. So it remains unclear why Village Preschool collected hundreds of thousands of dollars while serving a handful of children.

That question may be one thing the county looks into as it continues on with an internal investigation on Barnes’ actions, which it opened on July 28.

The nature of that investigation remains a politically charged question. County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson has assigned Chief Operating Officer Chris Neal to investigate Barnes regarding potential conflicts of interest and her compliance with ethics rules, alongside re-evaluating those two policies in the county at-large. But two county commissioners are demanding an outside investigation.

Commissioners Shannon Singleton and Julia Brim-Edwards who on Monday both notified the County Commission in an email of their plan to introduce a draft resolution that will “initiate an independent, external investigation into recent allegations and reports pertaining to Leslee Barnes.” Both previously told WW they wanted an external investigation to ensure public trust in Preschool for All and the County.

“We expect that the Commission will define and approve the scope of this independent investigation,” Singleton and Brim-Edwards wrote. “Following the introduction of this Resolution, we expect to introduce a budget modification to fund this investigation based on the Commission’s defined scope.”

The chair is not yet convinced. In a statement to WW, Vega Pederson said it will be up to Neal to determine next steps.

“Director Barnes started at the county in 2021 under a different administration, and I hired Chris Neal to bring a fresh perspective to the county and have full confidence in his ability to determine what course of action is required—including whether an external review is the right use of county dollars,” she said.