The
county giveth and the county taketh away. Furthermore, it can do so without
warning or regard to the wider implications of its actions.
           That’s the hard lesson the heads of
local social service agencies say they have learned in the wake of County
Executive Jack Doyle’s decision to cut county funding for their programs by
over $1 million this year. And in the midst of a budget crisis that could put
the county books as much as $65 million in the red next year, Doyle has
proposed an additional cut of $6.8 million for 2003.
           As distressing as the county cuts
are, the manner in which they were announced compounds the problem, says William
Clark, president and CEO of the Urban League of Rochester. Earlier this summer,
before Doyle outlined what specific cuts he intended to make, the Urban League
got a letter from the county reminding the agency that the county reserved the
right to renegotiate its contract with the social service provider. Such
contracts spell out how much county money agencies will receive for specific
programs they administer on the county’s behalf.
           The letter “didn’t indicate what
programs or how much would be cut,” says Clark. The day after Doyle’s
announcement, Clark says, “I picked up the newspaper and found out I had a
$51,000 cut in Kiosk [a job placement program] for this year.”
           Clark doesn’t dispute the county’s
right not to provide money promised to his agency under contract, but he says,
“You can’t operate a program on the assumption someone can cut it.”
           Joe Calabrese, president and CEO of
the United Way of Greater Rochester, says his agency never got the warning
letter, but “that doesn’t matter anyway.” What matters, he says, “is that the
county urged these agencies to provide these services” because the agencies had
an expertise and/or could provide the services less expensively than the
county. “The agencies then build up their infrastructure, they build up staff,
they sign a lease they can’t get out of, and nine months later, the county
pulls the rug out from under them.”
           Rescinding contracted funds “may be
legal,” Calabrese says, “but it certainly isn’t ethical. It leaves the people
they serve stranded and the agencies holding the bag.”
Cuts to any
one program can affect an agency as a whole, Calabrese says. For example, if an employee in
a program directly affected by the cuts has to be laid off, the agency may have
to provide severance and vacation pay, money that would have to come from other
funds within the organization. Social service agencies “just can’t ramp down as
quickly as the county expects,” he says.
           Cuts mandated by the county
executive for this year can be made without legislative approval. Cuts proposed
for 2003 will be debated by the full legislature in November. But, as Clark
says, “We can’t even wait on the legislature [to discuss the 2003 budget]. We
need to react now. We may be spending money we don’t have to provide services.
           “If you take money out of all these
organizations, they’ll need to be reducing staff, eliminating programs, and
reducing the number of clients now,” he adds.
           Even more worrisome for agencies is
the fact the receipt of state and federal funds is often contingent on an
agency receiving a certain level of county funding. Given that, the county cuts
could end up costing local agencies as much as $15 million in county, state,
and federal aid next year, Calabrese estimates.
           County administration spokesmen
James Smith and Bob Nolan have not returned several calls from City since the cuts were announced.
Calabrese and
several other social service agency executives have formed a coalition to urge
Doyle and county legislators to restore this year’s cuts, not make cuts Doyle’s
proposed for next year, and include the coalition in efforts to find a
long-term solution to the county’s budget woes.
           Calabrese says he understands the
need to balance the budget, but has a harder time comprehending how the county
found itself in a budget crisis. “The problem, as I see it, is that it should
not have gotten to the crisis stage,” he says. “As the county was using
reserves to balance its budget in the past, it should have understood this
moment was coming and put together a task force… to figure out how to get out
of this mess.”
           The county had as much as $56.5
million in reserve five years ago, but has since entirely depleted those funds.
           County legislator Mike Hanna
(R-Perinton) says the current crisis “is no surprise.” Quarterly budget
projections he and his fellow legislators receive from the Doyle administration
“forecasted that difficult times were coming.” Though the crisis may have been
precipitated by the events of September 11, Hanna says, “even without September
11, the mandates we receive from New York State have not allowed us to keep up
with increased costs.”
           Told of the coalition’s hope the
cuts would be restored, Hanna wondered, “Is Mr. Calabrese saying he supports a
30-percent [property] tax increase?” Doyle has said the county would have to
impose such a large increase to balance its budget without making the entire
array of cuts he’s proposed — and he has steadfastly refused to raise
property taxes, which have remained flat for the last decade.
           Calabrese isn’t advocating for a
property tax increase of that magnitude, but he also rejects the assumption the
county either has to raise property taxes or impose what he termed “Draconian”
cuts.
           The county has had, and continues to
have, “other options,” he says, such as “a temporary increase in the sales tax”
or an appeal to the state for additional funding. In light of the state’s
recent financial assistance to the city school district, Calabrese says seeking
state help “is also a legitimate approach for the county, especially because
the county executive says the reason the budget’s not in balance is because of
state-mandated spending.”
           Either of those options would be
contingent upon the approval of lawmakers in Albany. As neither option has been
formally proposed, it’s unclear what the state’s response would be, or how soon
such measures could ease the crisis.
           It’s also premature to assess the
coalition’s chances of having funding restored this year or the next. The Doyle
administration would have to reverse itself to restore funds this year, and the
Republican-controlled legislature would have to approve a 2003 budget that
reinstates the cuts Doyle, a Republican, has proposed.
           Calabrese says that when he
presented his case to the legislature’s Human Services committee in mid-August,
“there was some support” for his position. He declined to name sympathetic
committee members, but Republican vice chair Mark Assini of Gates is not among
them.
           Assini says he does not support
restoration of the cuts. Given county government’s current situation, he says
he prefers to let citizens decide for themselves what agencies to support
through their donations.
           In terms of Calabrese’s proposed
solutions, Assini said he’s interested in the option of raising the sales tax.
“It’s certainly a possibility,” he says. And if the state or, for that matter,
the federal government is willing to chip in to get the county through its
crisis, “I’m more than willing to accept it,” he says. “I’m not that proud.”
           “I don’t want to pay higher taxes, but
sometimes you have to look at alternatives,” Clark says. “I would prefer to pay
more taxes to make sure people in the community are being served, as opposed to
not paying taxes and watching neighborhoods deteriorate and the community just
fall apart.”
This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2002.
