‘We will not close our doors’

“And into coming up with a strategic plan to keep the doors open while we seek the funding.”        
Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi said recently that the county's $2.5 billion budget could fall short by as much as $150 million this year, meaning that cutbacks are all but inevitable. Suozzi is cutting $4.5 million from the Nassau Youth Board, which administers the county's contracts with youth-service providers like the MLK Center.        
On Feb. 18, social-service agencies received certified letters from the county notifying them how much their contracts would cut. Stone said she was told that her county contract, worth $209,000, would be reduced by 75 percent, effective March 31.        
"We cannot afford these cuts," said Stone, who noted that the county cut a check for $52,000 to the agency for the first quarter. The only trouble was, Stone said, she had to spend the money by the end of March, an almost impossible task.        
The MLK Center, Stone said, provides after-school tutoring for 55 Long Beach students, primarily from the community's low-income, minority neighborhoods. It also offers an after-school recreation program for up to 150 children.        
At an impromptu community meeting at the center on Feb. 18, Stone and Board of Directors Chairman James Hodge appealed to 150 children, teenagers, parents and senior citizens to volunteer their time to help keep the center open. Also present were Legislator Denise Ford (R-Long Beach) and City Councilman Lenny Remo.        
“In the past, when things happened, there were community members that kept the doors open, and we will continue in that same fashion,” said Stone, who noted that many parents depend on the after-school program. “We will not close our doors.”        
 Stone is asking any person with time to spare, including her staff, to help keep the programs afloat.        
“I’m definitely very, very disappointed that we could have public officials that don’t see the great need for the children, and are not sensitive to what this means for young adults who already face challenges when they don’t have the support of agencies such as ours,” said Stone, who took over as executive director last year.        
Stone was one of an estimated 500 people who turned out for a Feb. 19 rally on the steps of the Nassau County Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola. They were protesting cuts to more than 40 nonprofit agencies that Nassau hires to provide social services for county residents, many from the area's poorest neighborhoods. Sixteen to 20 agencies will lose all of their county funding at the end of March. The others will have their contracts reduced by 50 to 75 percent.
Suozzi has pledged that he will not cut social-service contracts if he gets three "revenue enhancers," all of which require approval by the state Legislature. They include a surcharge on traffic tickets, cameras to photograph motorists who speed through red lights in order to ticket them, and a cigarette tax. The enhancers would bring in an estimated $30 million to $38 million, according to county officials.
Suozzi has proposed the enhancers for a number of years. The state Senate, but not the Assembly, has approved the stoplight cameras, but neither body has agreed to the other enhancers.
Linda Leonard, executive director of the Long Island Crisis Center in Bellmore, said the county contract for the center's 24-hour, seven-day-a-week suicide-prevention hotline was cut by two-thirds, from $257,000 to $88,000. In addition, the center lost all funding -- $95,000 -- for its gang-prevention program and alcohol-abuse hotline.
Leonard said the crisis center could survive on savings for a short time, but not indefinitely. "For a little while we'll scrape by, because we've had generous donors," she said with a tinge of resignation in her voice.
The Bellmore-Merrick Youth Sports Consortium had its $6,000 county contract cut by 75 percent. The consortium, a project of the Community Wellness Council, provides training in positive coaching for local Little League and Police Activities League leaders, said Fran Licausi, the council's executive director.
The Wellness Council is funded primarily by state grants and private donations. With New York state looking to dramatically reduce spending because of a $15 billion budget gap, the Wellness Council's state funding is up in the air. "We have funding until June," Licausi said. "After that, I have no idea where the Wellness Council is headed."
In addition to parent education programs, the council runs a substance-free post-prom party to keep high school seniors safe on prom night. Last June, the party attracted more than 100 students from Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools.
Peter Levy, president of the Nassau County Coalition of Youth Service Agencies, said his group would continue to fight the county cuts with protest marches and letter-writing campaigns. "This is one of the worst weeks Nassau County youth services have faced," Levy told the crowd at the rally.
"It used to be that Nassau County was a place people wanted to move to ...," he continued. "We can't let a budget problem affect kids."
Levy said that Suozzi has asked the social-service agencies to lobby state legislators for the enhancers needed to save youth services. Youth-service agencies would help in that fight, Levy said, but in the meantime, the county should maintain funding for the Youth Board. "If these budget cuts go through," he said, "lives will be lost."
“They always seem to attack the young and the defenseless,” said Eon Baily, a youth advocate at the Five Towns Community Center. “Our youth are our future ... We must come together as a community and fight.”
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