
{"id":20207,"date":"2011-08-11T14:58:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T18:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=20207"},"modified":"2011-08-11T14:59:31","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T18:59:31","slug":"county-must-now-deal-with-state-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/08\/11\/county-must-now-deal-with-state-budget-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"County must now deal with state budget cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Cuts made to the recently passed state budget to close a nearly $2.5 billion shortfall will take a toll on Orange County residents. Social services will suffer, said County Manager Frank Clifton, as will public health services and the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The biggest impact will be in social services,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said on Tuesday.   <\/p>\n<p>Among the programs the Orange County Department of Social Services offers are child-protection services and child-care subsidies, employment services and emergency financial assistance and services for seniors and people with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Clifton listed child-care subsidies, employment assistance and transportation services as being programs that would likely be curtailed.<\/p>\n<p>In health services, health screenings might be harder to schedule. Criminal-justice programs that face elimination include a drug-treatment program that allows those with minor offenses who follow given guidelines to avoid jail time.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We know these programs work,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said of all of the above. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In any of them, you can always gain efficiencies. But that means fewer services.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In most cases, Clifton said, county residents don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where funding for a particular program comes from, just that the service exists. But when the state no longer provides funding for that program, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it all reflects back on the county.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We get into a difficult situation and have to make difficult choices,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We just have to deal with it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Moreover, he added, when the state cuts funding for a program, it generally forever becomes a county program. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to pick it back up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I believe we will continue to see cuts in state support for state-mandated programs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Steve Yuhasz, vice chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The toughest decisions will be which of these cuts we will be able to offset with local funds and\u00c2\u00a0which programs\u00c2\u00a0we will have to abandon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Yuhasz cited child-care subsidies as being among \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vital programs which have suffered as a result of state funding reductions and which the county has partially funded.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Cuts to public health funding, he said, affect not only the ability to provide immediate services to underserved populations, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153have a negative affect on our ability to respond to public health emergencies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Play this against a backdrop of continuing unemployment, cuts in UNC system funding, and UNC-Chapel Hill in particular, and\u00c2\u00a0the inability of people to\u00c2\u00a0afford higher property taxes, and you see the dilemma facing the [board of commissioners],\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yuhasz said.<\/p>\n<p>Many programs to which Orange County residents have grown accustomed are relatively new, and now, Clifton said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we may have to adjust.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Orange County has been and wants to continue to be a state leader in innovation, protection of the environment, great schools and support for safety-net programs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yuhasz said. <\/p>\n<p>But, he continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Balancing competing interests is always difficult \u00e2\u20ac\u201c trying to balance them while taking on former state responsibilities may be impossible.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>This is just the beginning of a process, Clifton warns, from the federal level down, to downscale publicly funded programs. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When the federal cuts come, then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to see some dramatic changes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to trickle down \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 especially in human services.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s big dollars,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clifton said of those federal budget cuts.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People need to get used to this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><em>In upcoming issues of <\/em>The Citizen<em>, we will be taking more detailed looks at the real and potential effects to Orange County residents of state and federal budget cuts. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cuts made to the recently passed state budget to close a nearly $2.5 billion shortfall will take a toll on Orange County residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20207"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20262,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20207\/revisions\/20262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}