By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer
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.
“The biggest impact will be in social services,†Clifton said on Tuesday.
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.
Clifton listed child-care subsidies, employment assistance and transportation services as being programs that would likely be curtailed.
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.
“We know these programs work,†Clifton said of all of the above. “In any of them, you can always gain efficiencies. But that means fewer services.â€
In most cases, Clifton said, county residents don’t 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, “it all reflects back on the county.â€
“We get into a difficult situation and have to make difficult choices,†he said. “We just have to deal with it.â€
Moreover, he added, when the state cuts funding for a program, it generally forever becomes a county program. “The state’s not going to pick it back up.â€
“I believe we will continue to see cuts in state support for state-mandated programs,†said Steve Yuhasz, vice chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners. “The toughest decisions will be which of these cuts we will be able to offset with local funds and which programs we will have to abandon.â€
Yuhasz cited child-care subsidies as being among “vital programs which have suffered as a result of state funding reductions and which the county has partially funded.â€
Cuts to public health funding, he said, affect not only the ability to provide immediate services to underserved populations, but “have a negative affect on our ability to respond to public health emergencies.â€
“Play this against a backdrop of continuing unemployment, cuts in UNC system funding, and UNC-Chapel Hill in particular, and the inability of people to afford higher property taxes, and you see the dilemma facing the [board of commissioners],†Yuhasz said.
Many programs to which Orange County residents have grown accustomed are relatively new, and now, Clifton said, “we may have to adjust.â€
“Orange 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,†Yuhasz said.
But, he continued, “Balancing competing interests is always difficult – trying to balance them while taking on former state responsibilities may be impossible.â€
This is just the beginning of a process, Clifton warns, from the federal level down, to downscale publicly funded programs.
“When the federal cuts come, then we’re going to see some dramatic changes,†he said. “That’s going to trickle down … especially in human services.â€
“It’s big dollars,†Clifton said of those federal budget cuts.
“People need to get used to this.â€
In upcoming issues of The Citizen, we will be taking more detailed looks at the real and potential effects to Orange County residents of state and federal budget cuts.