Putnam anti-poverty agency may close

from The Charleston Gazette

# Only remaining employee laid off, vice president says

By Alison Knezevich
Staff writer

For more than 40 years, the Putnam County Community Action Council has been helping needy families facing crisis. Now, a financial crisis of its own could force the anti-poverty group to close its doors.

“We are out of money,” said Jackie Chaney, vice president of the Community Action board. “It’s a very sad state of affairs.”

On Tuesday, board members decided to lay off director Dawn Bennett after this week, Chaney said. Bennett has been the only employee, since other layoffs in July. They might have to shut down the agency, “but that isn’t certain yet,” Chaney said.

“We feel horrible about what it does to the people in the county who need the help the most,” she said.

Community Action has been in a money crunch since summer. In recent years, the group provided job-preparation and literacy programs through the Region 2 Workforce Investment Board, one of seven boards in the state that get federal money under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.

In June, Bennett learned that WIB planned to move its services from Community Action offices to a separate location, meaning they would no longer share the rent. Community Action board members moved to a cheaper office. They also planned to lay off some of its eight employees in July because the WIB did not have money to administer a reading program.

Soon after, Region 2 WIB officials told its funding recipients it had promised more money than it could give out for the 2006-07 fiscal year. It froze payments, and Community Action laid off all employees except Bennett.

Region 2 WIB director Jake Hunt acknowledged that WIB’s troubles “contributed” to Community Action’s crisis. His agency owed them $69,000 in reimbursements and has since paid them back about $24,000.

But he said he met with the group’s board last winter and told them they needed to diversify funding sources because the federal government was slashing his agency’s budget.

“We saw the cuts coming,” said Hunt, who was once the director of Community Action. “For us to be solely blamed would be an error.”

Five years ago, Community Action’s budget was nearly $1 million. Last year, it was $300,000, two-thirds of which came from Region 2 WIB. Not only have WIB funds shrunk, but so has other federal money, such as grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We have been taking cuts every year,” Chaney said.

Since July, Bennett has been working alone to provide “emergency services,” such as helping people pay utility bills through a FEMA grant. She has also been working with local churches for the Holiday Helpers program, which matches needy families to sponsors who provide toys and food for Christmas.

This week, Bennett and others met with representatives of one of Community Action’s only remaining funding sources, the Capital Resource Agency, which distributes federal block grants.

Capital Resource director Oren Thornhill said he would help Community Action through the end of the year, but is uncertain about funds for next year.

“I am sympathetic with them, but I don’t know how to get them out of that mess,” Thornhill said Wednesday.

One problem is that the federal grants are given out on a reimbursement basis, but Community Action has no money to spend.

Also, the federal government favors programs that help people become self-sufficient, rather than short-term help like paying utility bills and giving out Christmas toys, Thornhill said.

“Those are wonderful programs and there’s a need for them, but the federal dollars are just drying up for those things,” Thornhill said.

Thornhill added that Community Action had not drawn down on its contract with his agency since July.

Community Action is based on a model laid out in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, a legacy of his “War on Poverty.” In the past, it has served 2,500 people per year.

Bennett said she would work for free to distribute Christmas food and toys for people who already applied.