Trumbull MRDD board OKs cuts

By Ed Runyan

The board has made other cuts in recent years to offset $3 million in lost federal and state revenue.

NILES — The Trumbull County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities has approved $660,000 worth of cuts to make it possible to balance its budget for 2009, which starts Jan. 1.

In November, the board hopes voters will approve about $5 million in new money to offset future shortfalls. The board expects a $4 million shortfall by 2010 without passage of the new levy.

Among the cuts, the board eliminated $100,000 by declining to replace school buses in 2009. Typically the district leases and buys five new buses per year out of its fleet of 34.

The board also plans to save $150,000 by eliminating classes that teach custodial, secretarial and adult aide training to MRDD clients. Instead, the clients will be assigned to perform subcontract work in the shops.

The board will eliminate one management position saving $100,000 in salary and benefits and one accounting clerk, which will save $50,000.

The board will reduce its contract with the Trumbull Community Action Agency to take away about $100,000 worth of transportation for adult clients to get to their jobs.

The agency will also turn two service and support administration administrators into service and support assistants, which will allow part of their salaries to be paid by the federal government and save $60,000.

And the agency will move a program back in-house that helps parents of MRDD clients to get respite from tasks associated with their child to save $50,000.

The board will ask voters this November to replace a 1-mill levy with a 2.2-mill levy. The new levy will raise $7,492,435 annually, whereas the current levy raises about $2.5 million.

Dr. Douglas Burkhardt, MRDD superintendent, said the board needs the additional money to offset the loss of about $3 million per year of federal and state money in recent years.

Burkhart said it doesn’t appear to matter who is elected president of the United States, it appears the federal Medicare reimbursements the agency gets will continue to decline.

Likewise, the state’s financial problems suggest that state revenue will continue to drop.

The program is reimbursed at the rate of 60 percent for all adult training provided to its clients, such as that provided in the workshops.

Burkhardt said the board has compensated for the state and federal cuts by reducing employees — from 340 in 2000 to 303 now.

The board, which operates the Fairhaven School in Niles, three workshops, a transportation department, a seniors program and a school-to-work training program, serves about 1,100 students and adults.

Its 2009 budget is expected to be about $23 million. The agency has three levies that generate $14.3 million annually — a 2.25-mill issue that expires Dec. 31, 2014, a 1.5-mill issue that expires Dec. 31, 2012, and the 1-mill continuing levy.

runyan@vindy.com