It appears that time will run out on the working-poor families in Erie County who are trying to save their child care subsidies.

No pleas or financial compromises have dissuaded County Executive Chris Collins from ending the support that helps hundreds of families pay up to two-thirds of their day care costs.

Collins and his Social Services Department figure the subsidies targeted at the working poor have grown too expensive for county taxpayers. So the administrators wrote new rules that render ineligible some 1,100 children — four in 10 of those who were covered last year.

The Collins team gave families a 10-day notice, then, in the face of criticism, extended the warning to 30 days from the date each family’s cutoff letter was generated. Deadlines fell on families last week and continued to fall this week.

As parents scrambled, key legislators met Thursday with Collins aides to again ask that subsidies continue for at least 90 days. Legislator Maria R. Whyte, D-Buffalo, said she left believing Collins might consider a 90- day extension she fashioned. It would cost the government $1.3 million and count on concessions from the day care providers.

Later that day, Legislature Democrats tinkered with Collins’ list of major improvement projects eligible for long-term borrowing.

Then the next morning, Whyte learned her suggestion was dead.

She said a Collins official gave her reason to suspect the two outcomes were related.

“This uncompromising position does not bode well for governing together,” Whyte said Monday. “It needs to be perfectly obvious for everyone that this administration has no interest in democracy. They want to do it their way, period.”

Chris Grant, the Collins chief of staff who told Whyte her option had been rejected, said she has it wrong. The Legislature’s tinkering with the list of improvements had no bearing on whether to extend the subsidies, Grant said.

“The administration’s position on this has been clear and consistent. County taxpayers can not continue to subsidize Albany’s fiscal mismanagement, which increases the burden on county taxpayers,” Grant said.

Whyte intends to speak at a rally organized for 5 p. m. today in front of the Rath County Office Building. The religious group VOICE-Buffalo wants to create a show of support for the subsidies and will ask participants to march from the nearby St. Joseph Cathedral.

In other recent developments:

Collins’ Social Services Department, in the face of a state warning, lifted a county order that day-care providers ask parents for the pay stubs that prove they remain eligible for subsidies. The state Office of Children and Family Services said that duty should remain with county employees.

The state office continues to examine Erie County’s program and its use of the state-arranged Child Block Grant. But the review is not likely to save the subsidies before they expire for all families.

The Collins team said the program would have cost local taxpayers up to $10 million this year, more than they should have to pay. So officials lowered the maximum eligible income from 200 percent of the poverty level to 125 percent, or $27,562 a year for a family of four.

The Collins administration predicts that the vast majority of affected families will be able to cobble together other child care arrangements, using friends, relatives or lower-cost providers.

Deborah Lynn Williams is chief executive of the YWCA of Western New York, which also runs a day care center at 1005 Grant St. She said about a dozen families, a small percentage of its clients, have left because their subsidies have ended.

Williams said that the families reached out to relatives for support, but their children are now only being baby-sat and have lost the more enriching programs the YWCA offers.

“I believe as much as anybody about boot-strapping, about being a part of your own success,” she said, but government has told people trying to move up in life that it will remove a key element of support.”

“It seems really misguided to kick those folks in the teeth,” she said.