Nassau County-funded youth service programs are in the process of learning their fate for the balance of 2009 – and possibly beyond -- based on a plan presented yesterday by County officials and agreed to “reluctantly” by providers.

Under the plan, “some programs are being almost fully restored, others are partially restored and others are not restored at all,” said Peter Levy, President of the Coalition of Nassau County Youth Service Agencies which represents organizations funded by the County’s Youth Board.

It was reported that 11 programs out of the more than 43 funded by the Youth Board will receive no further funding for the course of 2009.   “For the most part, these programs were receiving very small amounts of county funding to begin with,” said Dr. Joseph Smith, Executive Director of Long Beach Reach.    Smith noted that in most cases, these were smaller programs of larger agencies and that the cuts were not likely to result in the closings of agencies themselves.   Nassau County officials declined to provide a list of programs receiving – or not receiving – funding restorations pending notification of the agencies involved.

The remaining programs will receive varying amounts of additional funding – in many cases the equivalent of ten months of their contractual funding for the year.  “With this funding and with other efforts the organizations will be making themselves, we believe they will be able to hobble through the remainder of 2009 – not unscathed, but able to live into 2010 when it is our contention that full funding should again be available to continue programs,” said Smith.

While unhappy that any programs should lose funding, providers believe that the resolution – which was based on the Coalition’s proposal to use a $1.2 million legal settlement from Wal-Mart -- represents a significant accomplishment.   “Originally, the number of programs which would receive no further funding during 2009 was slated to be 33,” says Smith.  “We feel that we accomplished a lot.”

The new plan also allows programs whose funding will not be restored to use any remaining county funds during the balance of the year. “Instead of being funded for just six months, they will have half funding for 12 months,” said Levy. “It makes a big difference for the agencies.  It also allows them to come back with full funding in 2010 which is everyone’s goal.”

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April Winningham

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We are BiasHELP and we are one of the 11 agencies who will no longer be providing services to Nassau County residents because of the Nassau County Executive’s plan that was “reluctantly” agreed to by the Coalition of Nassau County Youth Service Agencies. Despite comments made in this article about those programs that were defunded, we are not part of a larger agency – the statement is simply not true for BiasHELP. This short-sighted decision means that because Nassau County couldn’t come up with another 30,000 dollars to fund another six months of our programs, thousands of Nassau County youth, schools and agencies will no longer be receiving our services including anti-violence, anti-gang, and anti-bias education. According to Loida Santos, Program Coordinator with BiasHELP, “We have done so much with so little money over the years and I know the County Executive values our programs as we have been called to assist with numerous hate crimes in Nassau County. I’ve already been approached about conducting programs in Nassau County and my heart breaks now that I have to say ‘No’ to children in such need. They’re going to learn from the street rather than from someone who can help them to make the right decisions.” We believe this decision has far-reaching repercussions and is a tremendous disservice to our county’s youth. Santos concludes, “we may save money now by taking away the prevention education but we’ll be paying for the crisis it causes in the very near future… (translated into Spanish) Se podria ahorrar dinero eliminando programas preventivos pero eventualmente pagaremos en el futuro por la crisis que podria causar.”

For further information, please call BiasHELP – 631-479-6015.

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