Price of Service Cuts: Blair County Furloughs Worker, While Senior Housing Program Closes
July 8, 2009
Deep cuts to public services are being considered in Harrisburg as lawmakers and the Governor work to resolve the budget crisis. PBPC is tracking news reports on the potential impact of these cuts on local communities across Pennsylvania.
Today, we look at how Blair County government is implementing employee furloughs and a local nonprofit agency is shuttering a housing assistance program for seniors in order to deal with anticipated budget cuts.
The Altoona Mirror reported on July 8 that Blair County furloughed the victim-witness coordinator for juvenile court proceedings, and Blair Senior Services shut down a housing assistance program for seniors. These are just two examples of how proposed state budget cuts are impacting Pennsylvanians at the local level.
More information about how proposed cuts will hurt Pennsylvanians can be found at PBPC's 30 Ways in 30 Days Service Cuts Will Hurt Pennsylvanians, which examines proposed cuts to public education, college costs, hospitals, children's health care, senior services, state police patrols, and agricultural programs, among other areas. Return to the Price of Service Cuts.
Read the full Altoona Mirror article below.
Officials furlough one waiting for Pa. budget
Kay Stephens
July 8, 2009
http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/520587.html?nav=742
Blair County has furloughed one employee after eliminating her job, at least until state lawmakers come up with a budget.
Commissioners Terry Tomassetti and Donna Gority, voting Tuesday, said the victim-witness coordinator for juvenile court proceedings had to be eliminated because it's a 100 percent state-funded position. The county has no other money to pay coordinator Diane Hale, they said.
Other jobs supported with state funding, including ones in the county human services office and in the adult probation office, can be covered with available funds while waiting for state lawmakers to adopt a spending plan.
If a budget isn't adopted soon, or if the state adopts a plan with no money for these positions, then more furloughs may have to be considered, Tomassetti said.
State lawmakers were supposed to have a 2009-10 budget adopted by June 30. There were meetings Tuesday in Harrisburg on the budget but no proposals to resolve a stalemate.
Tomassetti said commissioners spent time in recent weeks gathering information on the impact linked to a late budget adoption and adoption of a budget with funding cuts.
"The impact was not as significant as we anticipated," Tomassetti said.
The greater local impact, so far, rests with agencies like Blair Senior Services which closed its housing assistance program. Based on last year's funding, the nonprofit agency expected to get $241,000 from the state's Homeless Assistance Program. But with no budget and no guarantee of funding, the agency laid off two people last week and began referring people to private sector organizations such as Catholic Charities.
"That is a big area of hardship for the community," Gority said.
She said she is annoyed by the disregard for the annual June 30 budget deadline.
"We'd never consider running over our budget deadline and going into the new year," Gority said. "What they're doing, it creates havoc for us out here in the counties."
