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Mangano offers new budget to NIFA

Report: Spending plan could preserve social service funding

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Nonprofit social-service agencies like the Five Towns Community Center were facing steep funding cuts by Nassau County as late as Monday night.

The county had a $36 million hole in its $2.9 billion budget that it needed to fill. Nassau officials had proposed slashing funding for youth services, including for agencies like the center, to fill that gap. 

Then, on Dec. 5, County Executive Ed Mangano submitted a new budget to the county’s financial control board, the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, after his previous spending plan was rejected because it relied on uncertain revenue sources to close shortfalls, officials confirmed on Tuesday. 

In his most recent spending plan, Mangano found savings in other sectors of the budget (see sidebar, page 3) in order to avoid cutting youth services. That’s according to Eric Naughton, the county’s deputy county executive for finance.

On Tuesday, leaders at social service agencies like Five Towns Community Center were breathing a collective sigh of relief –– at least for now. 

A NIFA spokesman said Tuesday that the board, which has the power to accept or reject the new spending plan, and make its own cuts if necessary, had received the new county budget “within the last 24 hours,” and that it was under review.

NIFA’s rejection of the budget last week had left the Legislature with little time to come up with a new plan for closing a $36 million budgetary deficit before the control board instituted its own sweeping cuts. Mangano’s office previously offered a contingency plan that would close the gap but threatened to leave many local social service agencies short of funding.

County Youth Board agencies, many of which provide important services such as early intervention and drug treatment, faced suspension of county funding after three months under that plan, and might still face cuts if NIFA does not accept the revised budget that Mangano proposed on Monday. 

Lorenzo Sistrunk, the Five Towns Community Center’s executive director, said that any cuts to the agency would have had a devastating effect on services. Sistrunk said the center’s budget is a little more than $2 million, and about 60 percent of that comes from the county. Four years ago, the center lost $400,000 in county funding before most of the money was restored nearly a year later –– but not before most of the top staff was lost, Sistrunk said.

At the Legislature’s Nov. 21 meeting, a number of representatives of youth-service agencies had urged legislators to find a way to avoid cuts that could hurt the county’s more vulnerable populations.

“You have a responsibility to balance the budget, and not to do it on the backs of the children and families of Nassau County,” said Dr. Joseph Smith, executive director of Long Beach Reach

Jeff Reynolds, president and CEO of the Family and Children’s Association, warned that cutting addiction and recovery services would almost certainly lead to more opioid-related deaths next year.

Apparently, county officials got the message.

Cindy Wolff is executive director of Tempo Group, a nonprofit, community-based counseling center for youths, adults and families, based in the Five Towns. She said county funding is vital to maintaining services, in particular because the county’s heroin epidemic has ravaged local communities in recent years. “The heroin abuse has hit epidemic proportions,” she said. “We are state- and county-funded, so we depend on that money.” 

Tempo has offered substance-abuse prevention, education, intervention and treatment programs, as well as family counseling, for 40 years. With offices in Woodmere and North Merrick, it is licensed by the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, and is staffed by a medical director, therapists and social workers, all with backgrounds in treating substance abuse. “We know the importance of hiring professionals,” Wolff said.

What would happen if the facilities didn’t get the funds from the county? 

“It’s hard to say what would happen,” Wolff said. “We would have to change how we provide service, but it would definitely impact on the level of care we provide.”

Nassau County Legislator Howard Kopel, a Republican from Lawrence, last week chalked up NIFA’s rejection of the budget to political brinksmanship. “It could be people just playing chicken,” he said. “Nobody wants to do draconian things.”

Kopel said he did not believe the communities in his district would be drastically affected if and when cuts do happen, in whatever form they might come. “We’ve got some needy people in towns like Rockville Centre, Hewlett and Oceanside, but for the most part they’re fairly well-to-do,” he said. “In Nassau County, we have some pretty poor areas, and those are the ones we have to be concerned about.”

Jeffrey Bessen and Peter Belfiore contributed to this story.

Have an opinion about possible county budget cuts? Send your letter to the editor to jbessen@liherald.com.