By David Millstein
The Bellmore-based Long Island Crisis Center, a suicide prevention hotline, received word last week that it would get back about $28,000 of $103,000 that Nassau County had cut from its contract with the agency in December 1999. That figure amounts to roughly 27 percent of the original cut, said Paula Grenot, the agency's assistant director.
In all, the county is giving back about $3.6 million of $9.8 million it eliminated in discretionary cuts to human service agencies in an attempt to fill a budget hole estimated at $200 million. Roughly $1.1 of the $3.6 million is to be returned this year and another $2.5 next year.
The returned moneys will help the Long Island Crisis Center stay afloat; however, the agency continues to limp along with seriously depleted funds. The crisis center has been holding fund-raisers throughout the year to get out of the red. Agency officials have noted that the center has, at times, been in such dire straits that they have asked volunteers there to bring in their own toilet paper.
The other Bellmore-Merrick agency hit with county cuts was Tempo Group, a North Merrick-based substance abuse treatment center. The agency suffered about $100,000 in county cuts. In February, State Senator Charles Fuschillo (R, Merrick-Eighth District) stepped in and acquired $100,000 in state grant dollars to prevent any reduction in services by the agency.
As of press time, Tempo Group had received nothing back from the county. "Tempo Group was not one of the 30 groups recommended for restoration by either the [Nassau County] Legislature or the Youth Board," said Dianne Baumert-Moyik, press secretary to Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta, who had ordered the original cuts to human service agencies.
