The center’s request for the city to waive fees totaling more than $76,000—money it would use to complete the building of two new facilities—has conflicted with the city’s efforts to streamline its budget.

Berkeley City Council voted last week not to approve the refund of $6,000 in zoning fees or the waiver of $70,000 in building permit fees—amounts the center incurred as it gained approval for expansion in 2003. Instead, the council deferred a decision on the center’s request until the budget review process in June.

The center’s Executive Director Jill Ellis said a denial of the fee waiver might result in staff cuts or hour reductions, since the center already lost a $225,000 grant from a private foundation.

The center first applied for the fee waiver when it began planning construction of its new pediatric audiology and daycare facilities in 2003. The pediatric audiology suite would provide hearing screenings for newborns and hearing aid repair.

The center will not be able to fully equip the facility, which currently lacks crucial staff and resources, if it does not receive the waiver, Ellis said.

Former Berkeley resident Trish Keough, whose deaf son Rafael attended the center eight years ago, said a delay in the completion of the audiology facility would mean parents would have to continue the time-consuming practice of sending hearing aids elsewhere for repair.

“It’s basically denying a deaf baby hearing for a month before they can repair the hearing aid,” she said.

Keough praised the center’s program, which she attended with her 2-year-old son several times a week.

“We learned everything from the color red to animals to building blocks,” she said. “We learned how to approach life, me as a hearing parent, he as a deaf child, together.”

Rafael, now 10, is performing at grade level at John Muir Elementary School.

“He’s doing great, and one of the main reasons is because of CEID,” Keough said.

Berkeley City Council members have also lauded the center, calling it a “phenomenal” program that provides vital services to residents.

The council voted in February 2003 to defer the center’s permit fee for one year, despite the city manager’s recommendation against the waiver in consideration of the city’s tight budget.

But this year the council concluded they cannot spare the money.

“In spite of the fact that we love them, we just can’t afford (the waiver) right now,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington.

In the meantime, the city manager will work with the center on a long-term payment plan for the fees.

Worthington, who estimates the city will cut at least $6 million from its budget this year, said the center is only one of many programs to which the city must deny funding in the future.

Helen Luey, program director of the Hearing Society for the Bay Area, an advocacy group for the deaf, said she sees a trend among local programs for deaf children—a decrease in public funding and an increase in enrollment.

“It’s just all around that there seems to be less money and more need,” she said.

By Cindy Peng