In an effort to try to save some of the funding being cut from the Nassau County Youth Board, the Mental Health and Welfare Council and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Addiction, the Human Service Coalition is planning a rally on the steps of the County Executive Building at 1 West Street at noon on Wednesday, Jan. 19.

Among those being affected by the county cuts is Yours Ours Mine (YOM) Community Center, in Levittown, as well as, to a lesser degree, the Levittown and Island Trees School districts.

According to Jim Edmondson, the CEO of YOM, the rally is being put together by the Human Services Coalition of Nassau County, of which all the agencies, the mental health, the drug and alcohol and the youth board agencies are a part. He noted that everyone is getting involved in this protest because a lot of jobs as well as many services will be lost if the cuts proposed by Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta stay in place. The county executive, last month directed all departments to cut overall spending in discretionary contracts by 50 percent, which would directly impact the human service agencies that serve the county. This plan would cut $9.8 million from those areas.

YOM, a nonprofit agency, is among those being hardest hit by the proposed cuts, having had 59 percent of its funding from the Nassau County Youth Board cut and another 4.5 percent of its funding cut from the County Department of Drug and Alcohol Addiction. The Youth Board is cutting $172,000 from YOM and that along with the cut from the Department of Drug and Alcohol Addiction represents a total loss of approximately $200,000 from YOM.

Although this year is a major concern to Edmondson, he noted that he is even more concerned about 2001 because since there is already a projected county deficit for this year, he fears that more money will be cut next year. If none of the funding is restored to YOM, Edmondson stated, "We'll be gone. YOM will have to close, that's the bottom line." Edmondson said that in the 35 years that YOM has been in existence it has never had to sustain such devastating cuts. "If you cut 63 percent of anything you know you're going out of business," said Edmondson. "You have to, that's over half." He said that in order to survive this year YOM will have to lay some people off and cut some of the programs, noting "There's just no way I can make up $200,000 in a year."

The money is being cut from the Youth Board and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Addiction but Edmondson explained that it will affect all of YOM's programs because they are all interwoven. "Each program here pays a fair share of the rent, based on the square footage that they use and so if Nassau County Youth Board takes away $172,000 I can pay the rent but I don't have the staff," said Edmondson. "If I have the staff I can't pay the rent. It's a ripple effect."

One of the programs which will be affected by YOM's loss of funding is the Leisure Time Activities program which was started in conjunction with the Levittown School District this fall. That program, which meets at Levittown Memorial Education Center and is run by YOM, provides students in the school district an opportunity on Wednesday and Friday nights to gather together in a positive atmosphere so they are not out on the streets engaging in destructive or harmful activities. This program alone serves between 125-135 middle and high school students in the Levittown School District.

A before and after school program, nursery school program, services for children of divorced or separated parents, bereavement counseling and drug and alcohol services are just some of the other services provided to children within the Levittown School District.

Dr. Herman Sirois, superintendent of the Levittown School District noted that the cuts to YOM will impact the school district because so many children within the district benefit from the wide variety of services YOM provides. YOM also provides the district with two social workers in the elementary schools. "Any services that are cut or added to YOM affect us indirectly in improving the lives of the kids that go there," said Sirois. "If a kid is having some trouble and he can get that help through YOM he's going to have a much better time in school. If he doesn't get the help, he's not going to pay attention to school. It's part of one community. The agency is separate but we're all on the same team." He said that the district will do whatever it can to pick up the pieces of the services lost from YOM, such as the Leisure Time Activity Program, which he said is beneficial to the district because not only does it get the kids off the streets at night but it provides them with some additional study time set within the other games and activities.

The Levittown School District will also be directly impacted by the county cuts because it will be receiving an approximately 5 percent cut from the Department of Drug and Alcohol. Sirois noted that this could mean an approximate loss of $15-20,000 for the district, which represents 5 percent of the salaries of the four drug and alcohol counselors that the district employs.

Richard Segerdahl, superintendent of the Island Trees School District said that his district won't be as affected by the cuts to YOM because not as many of his students go to YOM because Island Trees provides many of the same services, but he noted that the district itself will receive a cut from the county. Money from the county funds approximately 10 percent of the salaries of the two elementary school counselors. "We'll just try to make it up in our budget because they do provide a tremendous service for a lot of our elementary [students]...They do a tremendous amount of work with kids in group counseling as well as parental support and we certainly wouldn't want to lose their services," said Segerdahl.

Parental support is another area where YOM will be suffering a loss. One of the programs which is being cut, which is funded by the Nassau Children and Families Association, but housed in the YOM building, is PACT (Parents and Children Together) program. This program not only helps Levittown families but was run by two Levittown women. This program worked with mothers who need to learn parenting skills.

Edmondson noted that Levittown was being hit especially hard by the county cuts because not only was his agency and the school district receiving cuts but Big Brothers/Big Sisters, which is located in Levittown is also getting an extremely large cut from the county.

YOM, said Edmondson, is truly a community based agency because although it will not turn away people from neighboring communities, it mainly services Levittown residents. Besides the youth program, YOM also serves people with drug and alcohol addictions, senior citizens, people who have lost a loved one and more. Edmondson defines YOM as, "a multi-service agency that has truly become the safety net for individuals at risk who need human services." Edmondson acknowledged that nobody wants to see taxes raised but he pointed out that these services need to be provided somewhere and agencies such as YOM are able to provide them much more cost-effectively.

To the residents of Nassau County, Edmondson asks, "That they join with us in educating our legislators and the county administration of what the reductions really mean to families in Nassau County, in particular this community." The rally will take place at noon on Wednesday Jan. 19 on the steps of 1 West Street in Mineola.