Youth Boards Petition Nassau Legislature to Stop Cuts

The Long Island Crisis Center in Bellmore is among several youth board agencies fighting proposed spending cuts made by Nassau County Legislature.

"This fund is more than ample to pay the salaries of the Youth Board contract staff who have been laid off," wrote Associate Director Andy Peters in an email plea to supporters. "This decimation of the Youth Board staff could potentially mean a loss of millions of dollars in federal and state funding streams to youth service agencies like LICC, which have been successfully accessed for us in the past."

The cuts are part of a $100 million reduction in the 2011 budget due to the control period issued by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the state oversight board in charge of the county’s finances. County Executive Ed Mangano has proposed $181 million in cuts to plug a budget gap estimated by NIFA to be $176 million in 2011.

“It is not the legislature which is enacting these cuts on these youth programs, it is the administration,” Majority Leader Peter Schmitt, R-Massapequa, said. “We’re in store for an extremely disruptive, ugly period where there’s going to be significant cut backs, layoffs. I don’t think anybody up here is happy about the cuts that are being made.”

Also on the list of youth board agencies is the Nassau County Police Activity League (PAL). Both the Bellmore and Merrick PAL units would be affected by the cuts. The following statement was released on the Nassau PAL website:

"Nassau County has announced plans to remove active police officers from the Police Activity League units as early as May 1. The reduction in officers will mean the virtual elimination of PAL as it exists today. Your children’s PAL programs will most likely disappear without the assigned officers."

Nassau Democrats recently held a rally charging that youth board cuts in Republican districts totaled about 3 to 5 percent, whereas Democratic districts have been cut in half or completely eliminated. Of the $1.7 million in cuts, $1.4 million is said to come from Democratic districts.

Leg. Kevan Abrahams, D-Hempstead called the percentage cuts “outrageous.”

“The bottom line is...Republican districts areas in Elmont, areas in the Five Towns, areas in Long Beach all saw 5 percent cuts, all happen to be represented by Republican legislators,” he added.

Schmitt, however, denied that the cuts were made along party lines.

“For kids to be held up on a partisan basis is wrong,” Legis. Dave Denenberg, D-Merrick. “But none of these cuts should be happening. We’re discussing cuts that should not be happening under law.”

Joseph Smith, leader of the Nassau County Youth Board Coalition, urged the legislators to act. “What’s at stake are lives,” he said. “The bottom line is theses are the resources, these are the services that people move to Nassau County to have and to behold and count on.”

(Matthew Hogan and Geoff Walter contributed to this article.)