By Christina Rexrode crexrode@charlotteobserver.com

About 130 employees will be laid off from the child care center at Wachovia Corp.'s north Charlotte campus, and the center will no longer cater to Wachovia employees.

The transition is just another change that Wachovia employees will have to get used to as Wells Fargo & Co. continues to absorb their employer. In August, Wells said it would eliminate an income-based tuition subsidy for employees who use the center, a benefit that had been popular in legacy Wachovia.

The child care center, called the Leslee Lloyd Child Development Center, is managed by Massachusetts-based Bright Horizons Family Solutions. In a letter last week to state and local officials, a Bright Horizons manager said the loss of the tuition subsidy “will cause a decrease in enrollment and resulting decline in staffing for Bright Horizons. The centers will transition from a client based center to a community based Bright Horizons center.”

Previously, the center was open to non-Wachovia families, though employees had top priority.

The layoffs will be effective Dec. 31, according to the filing. It wasn't immediately clear if the 130 employees make up the entire faculty or whether they'll be replaced. The filing says the child care center “will be downsizing the centers and laying off it faculty located at Charlotte, North Carolina 28262 …” It appears that the child care workers are employees of Bright Horizons, not Wachovia.

Wells Fargo said this summer that the decision to eliminate the tuition subsidy was difficult, but designed to create consistency across Wells Fargo locations. Wells has also eliminated another benefit that Wachovia had provided, which gave employees time off to care for sick family members.