Addiction agencies await funding

It’s happening again, and the timing couldn’t be worse. State funds earmarked for Nassau County substance abuse programs are being held up and the agencies awaiting them are fending off crises at an unprecedented rate. Battling stoically against an ongoing heroine epidemic as well as a shameful spate of drunk driving fiascoes, neighborhood drug counseling agencies in Baldwin, Rockville Centre, Franklin Square and other areas are still awaiting a “January advance” they say the county has received but has yet to distribute.

“Every year there’s something new that logjams the process,” said Claudia Rotondo, executive director of the Baldwin Council Against Drug Abuse, who recently attended a meeting with other drug counseling administrators. At the meeting Rotondo produced a list of January advance arrival dates and a stack of letters she has written to every county executive since 2000 to complain about the delays. Rotondo said that since 1995 only three “January advances” have actually been delivered in the month for which they were named and several have not arrived until late March.

“When you’re into the second week of February without an estimated time that the money will arrive, it’s difficult to function,” said Art Rosenthal, executive director of the Confide Drug and Alcohol Counseling Center on North Village Avenue in Rockville Centre. “We haven’t been able to make payroll, pay our rent or other bills.”

The meeting of substance abuse center administrators included several agencies eagerly awaiting promised funds. Rosenthal and Rotondo were also joined by Sal LaFemina, who is executive director of Community Counseling Services of West Nassau in Franklin Square.