Just months before the completion of an expansion and renovation of its facilities in West Orange, JCC MetroWest is reviewing its operations in the face of a $3.1 million cash deficit.

A joint committee formed by JCC MetroWest and United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ is exploring options for meeting the "serious fiscal challenge."

The committee is expected to focus on JCC services at its facility on the Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany, which includes a pool, fitness center, and day care center.

Although officials emphasize that no decisions have been reached, they acknowledge that the JCC has "exhausted its ability" to fund the Whippany facility, known as the Lautenberg Family JCC, which has run at a deficit since its opening in 1992.

The first set of recommendations by the joint committee will be presented on May 16 to the UJC MetroWest executive committee. UJC MetroWest, the umbrella Jewish philanthropy for Essex and Morris counties, has already authorized a $2.6 million loan to assist the JCC.

JCC MetroWest president Dolly Luwisch said a "major commitment" has been made to the Leon & Toby Cooperman JCC, Ross Family Campus, in West Orange and its core programs there, including the newly renovated early childhood and fitness areas. She also said JCC MetroWest is similarly committed to its Camp Deeny Riback, in Flanders.

As for the Whippany JCC and the Morris County population it serves, everything remains on the table.

"This is a complicated, intricately woven process," said Luwisch. "We are wrestling with how to pursue what makes sense for delivering services to Morris County. It takes a lot of minds around the table, and there are no decisions yet."

In a joint statement to supporters, UJC MetroWest and JCC MetroWest acknowledged that the JCC has absorbed the Whippany facility's deficit "for many years."

The costly West Orange renovation project put a strain on JCC finances, according to the joint statement, dated April 2007. The statement said JCC MetroWest "underwent bond financing to close a gap between construction costs and capital campaign funds received" for the renovation at the West Orange facility.

The capital campaign raised $14 million, but the project cost $21 million.

"We know it will be very challenging to develop a sustainable financial model for the JCC to continue in Whippany in the long term," said Arthur Sandman, associate executive vice president for program services at United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

He added that typically, JCCs rely on fitness centers, early childhood programs, and camping to fund their other programs.

"In Whippany," he said, "the sports and fitness and early childhood programs have not been able to generate the kind of revenue that is needed."

The joint statement was signed by Luwisch and UJC MetroWest president Kenneth Heyman.

It included a list of "additional pressures" contributing to the fiscal challenge.

According to the list, membership is growing in West Orange, but "slower than budgeted." Program revenues did not meet budget during the renovation project at the West Orange facility, and a change in the way the JCCs billed membership dues – from annual to monthly – led to "temporary cash flow problems."

The list also cited increased competition from other fitness facilities in Morris County.

Luwisch could not say ahead of the May 16 meeting what would be the fate of the day care/early childhood facility in Whippany, which serves 100 families with children ranging in age from six weeks to six years.

"We are committed to our early childhood families," she said. "We will do everything in our power to make sure that service continues in some format, with or without Whippany. We feel we have an obligation to them."

JCC MetroWest executive director Michael Hopkins was slightly more optimistic. "We are planning right now as if the early childhood center will be on the [Whippany] campus as of this fall. We have begun planning for alternate locations for one year from now." Still, he emphasized that no final decision has been reached.

Luwisch said that the Lautenberg JCC in Whippany, located on a campus that includes UJC MetroWest headquarters, the Lester Senior Housing Community, and other Jewish institutions – including New Jersey Jewish News – has run at a deficit since it opened 16 years ago.

"Even the most successful programs in West Orange do not break even or barely break even in Whippany," she said, referring in particular to the early childhood and fitness centers.

Hopkins cited location as a factor. The Whippany JCC is located on Route 10 just east of Route 287. "I have been told by many folks that there's a certain symbolism of the campus being on the other side of 287. It's technically in Morris County, but people perceive it as being at one end of the county, with 287 as a dividing line between east and west."

Luwisch added, "Most people want to be within a 15-minute radius of the facility. As Whippany has grown and developed infrastructure, the roads and the traffic do not support that kind of radius. You could live 20 minutes away on a good day, but it might take 45 minutes on average. People will look for something else."

Luwisch also said expenses have outpaced revenues and that allocations from UJC MetroWest have decreased in recent years.

Four years ago, a Morris County Task Force was created by the JCC MetroWest board to review the area's Jewish community and how best to serve it. At that point, according to Luwisch, it was already apparent that changes in service would be necessary. By October 2006, Luwisch said, it was apparent that the JCC would have to tackle the financial issues plaguing Whippany, and it engaged UJC MetroWest in the process, creating a joint liaison committee to analyze and address the Whippany JCC's costs and revenues. "UJC is actively working with the JCC to find the best solutions to their fiscal and programmatic challenges, as we have done for other agencies in the past," said Heyman.

Coincidentally, the Lautenberg JCC has been involved in an entirely separate partnership with the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute focused in part on Morris County, where the Jewish population is both smaller and less dense than the community that established the JCC in Essex County. Luwisch said she hopes the effort will help them identify the best ways to serve the Jews of Morris County.

So far, plans for delivering services to Morris County center on satellite programs, such as those already in place at the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County in Randolph, where the JCC MetroWest offers after-school enrichment programs, as well as at synagogues and other rented space.

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