The YES Community Counseling Center, a nonprofit outreach agency financially dependent on the county, is facing funding threats once again from County Executive Thomas Gulotta, who is searching for ways to dig Nassau County out of its current financial hole. Already, the county has slashed 54 percent of the YES budget for this fiscal year.

At first glance, YES doesn't look like much at all. Its offices are squeezed above a storefront just off Broadway, only two blocks north of the Massapequa train station. Meritorious citations hang proudly from the paneled walls of the waiting room, where educational pamphlets on just about every conceivable health and social topic are available to clients for the taking.

The counseling center provides outreach programs to young people and families in crisis. Counseling services are available for depression, eating disorders, bereavement, and drug and alcohol abuse. The center also provides job preparation, anger management sessions, and conflict resolution training for students, and helps identify child abuse cases in conjunction with area elementary schools.

Last year, when three Massapequa teens were killed in a drunk driving accident along Route 110, YES filled the high school with social workers to counsel students, said Assistant Director Mark Wenzel.

YES advocates contend its services are far reaching, have helped hundreds of families and young people, and dire consequences could erupt if the county continues to cut discretionary contracts, through which YES receives most of its funding. "[YES] tries to help young people with problems, so it won't lead to much bigger problems when they're older," said Kathy Sullivan, a 12-year volunteer with YES, and the substance abuse chairperson for the PTA. "I think that YES performs an invaluable service to this community..."

In December, the county slashed Youth Board funding ¬ a discretionary contract ¬ by $5 million, which translated to a loss of $130,000 for YES, 54 percent of its yearly budget. YES directors learned about that cut on Christmas Eve, and as a result the center was forced to lay off clerical staff and cut supplies, literally turning the center into a shoestring operation. More significant, YES was forced to reduce some youth and family oriented programs. Parenting workshops, job training, school-based anger management counseling and drug education were all scaled back.

Then again in April, County Executive Thomas Gulotta proposed another $5 million cut from the discretionary contract, which would eliminate the rest of YES's annual budget, debilitating all services, said Executive Director Jamie Bogenshutz.

"With the first round, we absorbed cuts to minimize the impact. We lost clerical people, eliminated the budget for supplies and we cut the vocation program, but we held on to the essentials," she said. "I won't have that luxury next time."

On Monday, Bogenshutz met with county legislators in an attempt to educate them about YES's commitment to public outreach, and to urge them from making further cuts. She called the meeting "benign," and said the legislators made it clear it was only the county executive who could decide for or against further cuts. "The legislators need to understand just how important this is...how important and how vital this is."

Bogenshutz said county Democrats are interested in saving the discretionary contract, and even State Senator Charles Fuschillo (R-Massapequa) stepped in to help the counseling center with a check for $10,000. Despite this good deed, Bogenshutz said it was "only a blip on the screen" when compared to the county funds on which YES was so dependent.

"If [Gulotta] is successful in implementing the next round of cuts, it could wipe us out," said Bogenshutz.