Vowing to continue their fight to have funding restored to social service agencies in Nassau County, hundreds of people rallied outside the legislative building in Mineola recently.

Carrying signs and shouting slogans such as "No Justice, No Peace" demonstrators chastised County Executive Thomas Gulotta for placing the burden of plugging the deficit on the backs of the poor and underprivileged. Late last year, Gulotta announced that funding for discretionary contracts, which is used to fund many social services agencies in the county, be slashed by 50 percent. The cost-cutting measure, which has affected approximately 100 health and youth service agencies, will save the county $9.8 million.

"They [social services] never should have been the first avenue of finding $9 million," said Judy Jacobs in an interview following the rally. "Nine million dollars in a $200 million deficit is a drop in the bucket and look where we are taking it from, the very people who need it the most."

Gulotta was not present at the rally, but in a press kit released to the media at the rally, he reaffirmed his administration's dedication to providing for social services and that he was doing all he could to find new revenue to restore funding.

"I think the county executive feels that he can simply get away with taking one group of people...to focus all of his efforts on to reduce the budget deficit," said John O'Connell, executive director of Health and Welfare Council of Long Island. "Essentially what all these people are saying is, this does not work."

A survey conducted by the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island, the organizer of the rally, revealed that five agencies will be forced to close their doors within the next three months and that more than 6,000 families (50,000 people) will lose services each month.

During the two-hour rally, Jacobs, Legislator Roger Corbin and Minority Leader Peter Schmitt, as well as other legislators, stated that they are doing everything that they can to restore funding. A plan to syphon savings from the deferment of an annual payment of approximately $20 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority into the social services sector has been met with resistance from the MTA.

The MTA has stated a strong opposition to such a plan of action. In a release stating that the postponement of the station maintenance payment would exacerbate their already tenuous financial standing, the MTA is facing a projected deficit of $135 million in fiscal year 2000. If the deferment was permitted by the New York State legislature, the lost revenues would have to be made up in "revenue increases or expenditure reductions," such as fare increases.

The MTA also argued that this would set an "extremely troubling precedent" of a municipality shifting its financial burdens to them. The MTA receives $120 million annually via station maintenance payments.

"Yes, it is an avenue that we were hoping to pursue if they agreed to put off that payment," said Jacobs. "It is not an answer to the budget problems of Nassau County. It is a one-shot, but it would buy us some time."