Trumbull JFS chief warns of possible cuts to agency

Programs that help the
working poor and youths could be cut.

WARREN — The director of the Trumbull County Department of Job and Family Services has written a letter to county commissioners warning of cuts in services from his agency that may result from a $2.9 million cut in state funding.

Thomas Mahoney wrote that the 40-year-old summer youth employment and training program and his department’s summer intern program are among the items that might face the budget ax.

The summer youth program annually employs 300 to 400 low-income youths ages 15 to 21 to do work such as cut grass and work on baseball fields.

The summer intern program employs supervisors for the summer youth program and other workers for the department.

Mahoney said he recently received his fiscal year 2008 budget, which eliminated four types of incentive funds the department received in previous years for meeting certain goals

In 2006, the money, which was mostly spent on a program called Prevention, Retention and Contingency, totaled around $2.5 million, Mahoney said.

For working poor

PRC payouts this year will be reduced in the 2008 year that began July 1, but Mahoney was unable to estimate by how much. PRC payments help working people with items such as car repairs and school clothes for their children.

Mahoney noted that the need for such payments has gone way up because of economic conditions in the county for the working poor.

Mahoney also warned that a Medicaid change approved in the two-year budget approved by state legislators in June allows children in families whose income is 300 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify for Medicaid.

That change could increase the number of people he needs to employ to handle the caseload, Mahoney said.

By around December Mahoney said he will know whether the Medicaid expansion will require county commissioners to chip in a larger amount of county money as its local share of the cost.