Thursday, August 07, 2003

By Jeffrey Cohan, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A Northern Home Care employee, who for 18 years vacuumed, dusted, laundered and cooked for cerebral palsy victim Robert Lauten, was laid off two weeks ago, another casualty of the state budget stalemate.

"Do you realize how embarrassing it is to have to ask your friends to cook your meals and do your laundry?" said the wheelchair-bound Lauten, who lives on the North Side.

The embarrassment ended late yesterday afternoon, when Allegheny County Council came to the rescue of Lauten and more than 9,500 other people who rely on social service programs which lost their state funding this summer.

Council, meeting in a rare emergency session called by county Chief Executive Jim Roddey, voted unanimously to divert $1 million in county funds to bail out 51 social service programs, including Northern Home Care's homemaker service.

"Now my house will get cleaned again," Lauten said.

The programs, run by 35 organizations, cover their expenses, in whole or in part, with money from the state's Human Services Development Fund, set up to support myriad programs that don't fit into traditional categories.

But this March, the state Legislature approved a bare-bones budget that virtually eliminated such funding, effective with the start of the fiscal year on July 1.

Legislators have since failed to reach agreement with Gov. Ed Rendell on proposals that would provide new revenue, mainly from slot machines and increased income taxes, to restore funds cut from human services, mass transit and schools.

Roddey and County Council approved a $300,000 budget transfer earlier this summer to keep the programs whole through the month of July.

The additional $1 million transfer approved yesterday will keep the 51 programs afloat through mid-November.

"In the four years I've been in office, this is the thing I'm most proud of," council President Rick Schwartz, D-Plum, said about yesterday's unanimous vote.

As Schwartz proposed, the money will come from two sources in the county budget: $968,000 budgeted for interest payments on a loan that was never consummated and $347,000 earmarked for the Kane nursing homes but not spent.

It was county Controller Dan Onorato, Roddey's opponent in the Nov. 4 election for chief executive, who first called attention to the availability of the $968,000.

County leaders are hoping that Rendell and the Legislature will ultimately replenish the Human Services Development Fund and reimburse the county.

Should the county not receive full reimbursement from the state, Roddey pledged to solicit private sector donations.

"The county will not be at risk for this $1.3 million," he said.

So that the $1.3 million will last longer, the county is cutting off funding for three agencies: the Community College of Allegheny County, the National Council for Urban Peace and Justice, and YouthWorks.

Representatives of the remaining 35 agencies are delighted that the county is picking up the state's slack.

"I am very excited," said Mary Ellen Leigh, interim director of Lydia's Place, which counsels women incarcerated in the county jail.

Ronald Hill, Neighborhood Centers Association president, said yesterday's vote erases concerns that his organization would lose contact with the needy people who receive his association's services.

"When you turn a program on and off, they kind of go away. They don't trust you anymore," Hill said, calling the bailout "a good thing."

Jeffrey Cohan can be reached at jcohan@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3573.

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