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Social services suffer impact of recession
Cuts hit mental health and retardation, children services, and alcohol and drug addiction treatment.
YOUNGSTOWN — Revenues have declined across a broad range of specialized Mahoning County departments and boards that depend on state and federal funds, permit fees and their own local real estate tax levies.
“These boards provide services to our most dire citizens,” Carol McFall, chief deputy county auditor, said of the mental health, children services, and mental retardation and developmental disability boards.
“When you’re cutting these kinds of funds in those organizations, you are cutting services.
“When an economic crisis hits, the need for our citizens is going to increase all the more,” she observed.
Faced with declining water well and septic system permit fee income, together with a loss of federal and state grants, the board of health cut its staff last year, reducing full-time equivalent staff from 64 to 51 people.
“The building industry is in deep recession, and the fate of our regulatory programs is tied to the success of the building industry,” explained Matthew A. Stefanak, health commissioner.
Total revenue for the board this year is projected at $5 million, down $1 million from 2008.
Managers were reduced from five-day to four-day workweeks between last April and last month, and their pay was reduced accordingly.
Since late 2007, the board has lost 11 staff members, six by layoff and five by resignation, retirement or death.
The cuts have resulted in slower response to public health nuisance complaints and fewer flu shot clinics, Stefanak said.
The need for the department’s clinics and other services is increasing as people lose their jobs and health insurance, Stefanak said.
County engineer
Squeezed between declining gasoline tax and license plate revenues and doubling road salt and asphalt prices, the engineer’s office laid off nine workers effective Dec. 31 to achieve an estimated $800,000 in annual wage and benefit cost savings.
Gasoline tax revenue declined due to fewer miles being driven, and license plate fee income dropped due to a shrinking population and fewer vehicles being registered, said Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy engineer.
The engineer’s department hopes to call back laid-off workers as it gets a clearer idea of this year’s materials costs and as some of its staff retires this year, Kenner said.
The financial squeeze on local governments due to doubling salt prices is already apparent to motorists affected by incomplete snow and ice removal from the roads this winter, Commissioner David N. Ludt said.
“I look at our roads, and I don’t see them as clean as they were last year,” he noted.
MRDD layoffs
With a staff of 256, the board of mental retardation and developmental disabilities operates with a $24.4 million annual operating budget, of which $17 million comes from its two local real estate tax levies. Other significant revenue sources are about $2 million from the Ohio MRDD, $1 million from the Ohio Department of Education and about $3 million from Medicaid.
The 2009 budget already assumes the layoff of two teachers and two aides will occur this summer at the Leonard Kirtz School because of a 25 percent loss in funding from the Ohio Department of MRDD, said Superintendent Larry Duck. The allocation from the Ohio MRDD declined $656,322 to $2,012,772.
The local MRDD board is also covering part of its state subsidy losses by keeping seven positions vacant.
The board also will maintain the Kirtz school and its two adult workshops, Duck said.
“No clients have been dis-enrolled. We’re still taking admissions,” he added.
Mental health cuts
The mental health board learned Jan. 21 that $555,286 will be cut from its subsidy from the Ohio Department of Mental Health for the fiscal year ending June 30. That cut represents about 4 percent of its $14 million budget.
The board coordinates publicly funded mental health programs.
The Jan. 21 cut followed a $131,775 reduction in state funding last October. A utilization review specialist position in the board office has been kept vacant as a cost-cutting measure.
The latest loss will force the board to vote Feb. 19 on programming cuts. The largest reductions recommended by the board’s ways and means committee are a $172,030 cut for the Turning Point Counseling Center and a $100,000 cut in funding for psychiatric hospital beds.
Richard Keyse, mental health board chairman, said the board will have to make the reductions in such a way that its agencies can still provide the best possible service to clients.
The board’s reserves were sufficient to absorb the $131,775 cut, but they aren’t sufficient to absorb the January reduction, Keyse said. The mental health board has two countywide real estate tax levies that together generated almost $4 million last year.
Alcohol and drug board
The alcohol and drug addiction services board suffered a series of cuts late last year that reduced its original combined pool of state and federal money totaling $3,676,581 by $74,004, a 2 percent cut.
The board coordinates publicly funded alcohol and drug abuse prevention and treatment programs.
That cut means that already scarce funding for treatment for indigent people will become even more scarce, said Doris M. Primm, executive director.
“We can’t serve everybody we need to serve, and now we can serve even less,” she said.
Treating a client in a 90-day residential program costs about $15,000; intensive outpatient treatment costs $3,000 to $5,000, she noted.
“As people leave, I haven’t refilled those positions,” Primm said of her board office staff, which now consists of six people. There are two vacant positions. The board has no funds in reserve, she added.
State officials have told the ADAS board to plan for a 10 percent cut in 2010 and another 10 percent cut in 2011, Primm said.
“It’s just a shame that the cuts have to come to the social services that are trying to keep people from being in those more expensive prisons,” Primm said.
Eighty percent of prisoners are locked up because they committed crimes linked to alcohol or drug abuse, she said.
Children services
The children services board has an annual operating budget of nearly $17 million. The $1.4 million in state funding received in fiscal year 2008 has been cut by $180,000 in the current fiscal year, said Daniel J. Thomas, fiscal officer.
The board derives 90 percent of its funds from local sources, including its three property tax levies, and 10 percent from the state, said Denise E. Stewart, CSB executive director.
The county Department of Job and Family Services has terminated funding for a program to help children at risk for juvenile delinquency, for which CSB received at least $300,000 over the past two years, Thomas said.
In calendar 2007, CSB got more than $4.9 million in property tax revenue, but it was $4.72 million in 2008, and is projected by the county auditor’s office to be $4.76 million in 2009, Thomas said. Thomas attributed the decline to tax delinquencies and the slump in new construction.
“The levy collections are down because the delinquencies are up,” McFall agreed.
Cost-cutting measures at CSB will include placing fewer children in costly specialized care institutions and more children in local group homes, where costs are much lower, Stewart said. The board is also looking to cut its food costs at group homes, she added.
The board has a staff of 141, including its group home workers. It will keep five positions vacant to save money, Stewart said.
No layoffs are expected, Stewart said.
milliken@vindy.com