UC Davis is pushing forward on plans for a new, on-campus child care center geared for parents working for or attending the university. Many budgetary and planning details for the project, however, still have to be ironed out before campus administration and the UC Office of the President determine it can be built.

With the support of some UCOP matching funds for construction, UC Davis hopes to build a 119-child facility at the west end of Orchard Park. The center is expected to serve infants through kindergartners with the possibility of care for grade-schoolers.

In March, UC President Richard Atkinson announced a new system-wide facilities initiative offering partial matching funds between $750,000 and $1.25 million to universities interested in building new child care centers for their growing campuses. The initiative came after the university system's faculty Academic Council urged UCOP to make child care funding an imminent budget priority.

Across the system, UC day care centers now serve 1,500 children. Another 500 youngsters receive care from privately run centers on campuses. But over the next few years, according to a 2000 system-wide child care task force, demand for services may double.

At UC Davis, 187 children are cared for at Colleges at LaRue and Russell Park centers run privately in cooperation with the university. Because of the number of well-regarded in-home day care centers in Davis - plus the on-campus child care options - most campus parents say they can usually find a place for their child. The parents' main complaint is the cost of the care, said campus Child Care and Family Services Manager Barbara Ashby.

"We know that we can fill the center," she said. "Our challenge will be to offer a quality program and to make it affordable."

• loose committee made up of representatives from Human Resources, Resource Management and Planning, and Architects and Engineers has been working since June to develop UC Davis' facility proposal.

The university plans to ask UCOP for a $1 million match for the $1.5 million the campus believes it can contribute to the project, said Cynthia Ingham Bachman, associate director of capital and space resource management, who has been working with the committee. Under the provisions of the UCOP proposal, campuses may pledge up to $2 million for the project and receive up to $1.25 million from the president's office. UC Davis, however, is restricted to contributing a lower amount.

"It's the option to what we think comes the closest to what (UC Davis') budget will be," Ingham Bachman said.

Because the day care center will not be tied to an academic department on campus, such as human development, no state funds may be used for the project.

The campus may have to reduce the scope of the project to stay within the tentative budget or look for other sources of funds to make up the difference, said Rick Keller, assistant vice chancellor for capital resource management. UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego have estimated construction costs for their proposed day care centers to be around $6 million, Ashby said.

Details of the UC Davis facility's design and construction timeline also still need to be straightened out. The final decisions on the facility proposal will be left up to Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw.

UCOP has not set a strict deadline for campuses to submit center proposals; however, UC Davis plans to have its application in by Dec. 1, Ingham Bachman said. She said the president's office has not yet set parameters for the distribution of the funds among campuses.

"The good news is that I think we are further along on this (proposal) than most campuses," Ashby said.