Many area nonprofits are still waiting to see how state government budget cuts will affect them. Nancy Jo Craig already knows.
“We’re scrambling right now,” she says.
Craig is executive director of Capital Area Corporate Recycling Council, which recycles items such as computer equipment, DVD players and phones. Until recently, CACRC had a cooperative agreement with the state that allowed them to pick up surplus computers from government offices throughout Louisiana. The equipment would be refurbished and delivered to classrooms in which students learn to build and fix computers; many of those computers end up in Head Start classrooms. About 1,000 students go through the program each year, Craig says.
The $250,000 that funded the practice was cut from the budget, which means CACRC loses about one-fourth of its total funding. The council already is getting squeezed by the collapse of the recycling market, caused by declines in prices for raw materials. Craig is already down to about 15 employees from 20, and she might have to let more people go later this year.
“It’s sort of ironic,” she says. “We are the green-collar jobs that everyone is talking about.”
In many cases, state agencies still are working out how to deal with more than $2 billion in cuts to the state’s now $28 billion budget. Local nonprofits that lean on direct state aid or state contracts are watching and waiting. Many organizations are already dealing with increased demand since Hurricane Katrina, and the cuts come at a time when the slow economy means donations are down while the needs only grow more severe.
In some cases, the axe has already fallen. Louisiana food banks shared $5 million in state money last year for buying food from in-state producers; this year, they’ll only have $500,000 to divvy up. The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank used to receive nearly $800,000 in state money, a significant multiplier when the rest of its food budget is only about $150,000.
“We’re going to lose potentially nine million pounds of food from all five food banks’ supply for this [fiscal] year,” Food Bank Director Mike Manning says. “It’s creating some new challenges for us.”
Summer always is a rough time for the food bank, since poor children aren’t receiving free and reduced-price breakfasts and lunches at school. Food donations, which peak around Easter and Christmas, are typically way down during the summer.
“We just try to get through the summer and into the holiday season,” Manning says.
“We are 80% state-funded, so it’s a huge impact on our organization,” says Shelia Sterling, southeast region vice president with Volunteers of America Greater Baton Rouge. “The problem right now is, we are unsure what’s what. We know the cut happened, but to what programs? That’s still not very clear.”
She says the organization expects a 4.2% cut, on top of a 3.5% cut from February, based on preliminary projections.
Chris Pilley is executive director of CARSA [formerly Community and Residential Services Association], which represents 40 providers of services for the developmentally disabled. He expects cuts of 2% to 7% for most programs.
“Until I hear from [the Department of Health and Hospitals], it’s going to be very hard for us to quantify,” Pilley says. “When we looked at the proposed cuts in the executive budget, we were looking at substantial layoffs statewide of 4,000 to 5,000 people. People have already closed a number of programs.”
Programs that help the disabled find work, which often require training and supervising clients, are particularly labor-intensive and therefore threatened. He says a new resource-allocation model CARSA has developed could have saved $100 million over three years, but would have required additional spending to implement. A $3 million allocation for the Office for Citizens with Disabilities that would have made the changes possible was cut from the budget bill.
Pilley says providers are still going ahead with changes, but the process will be slower.
“I understand the United Ways and those types of organizations are getting much stricter and don’t want to hold themselves out as the possible substitute for the state,” he says. “This is not a one-year blip in the funding stream. We’re looking at a three-year battle to try to keep our heads above water.”
Baton Rouge Area Alcohol and Drug Center gets “pass-through” money from the state through Capital Area Human Services. As an agency that tries to help those with substance abuse problems, their services become more vital when the economy is stagnant, executive director Joseph Munson says.
“Say someone loses their job, they’re either more likely to use, re-use, or increase their use,” he says.
Munson was lucky this time around; his budget was not cut.
“For this year, we are safe,” he says. “But it’s a year-to-year thing. We really just don’t know after this year what’s going to happen.”
