Emotions erupt over Hennepin County budget woes

She cries when she gets angry, Barb Olson, executive director of the Southside Family Nurturing Center in Minneapolis, told the Hennepin County Board on Friday.

"You just need to know that," she told commissioners. "My husband does. He just ignores it."

Then Olson, her voice quaking and eyes filling with tears, told them what she thinks will happen if the county slashes the funding of agencies like hers that offer support and counseling to low-income Minneapolis families.

"We will feel it in this city for five and 10 years -- when those kids get into trouble, when they stumble in school, when they feel overwhelmed, when they get angry that they lived in such poverty for so long ..."

She paused. "When everything is bleak, it's hard to see the color."

Olson was one of several nonprofit directors who last week asked the board to rethink $5 million in scheduled cuts to 78 nonprofit social services providers.

To some degree, their pleas just might have worked.

The budget proposals would put more money into domestic violence and sexual abuse programs and offer three to six months of reduced funding to providers that are losing contracts, he said.

And nine "family focus" programs, including Olson's, would get most of their funding back for at least six months as county officials analyze the services the county needs.

The changes would be funded with $2 million recaptured from a federal program.

"Most of these vendors are very good vendors doing very good things," Haats said. "It's just that we don't have enough money to buy all their services."

The Human Services Department is looking at a 2010 budget that is 12 percent smaller, amounting to a $63 million reduction from this year's $532 million budget. One reason is that some of the department's property tax dollars are being diverted to help the county hospital deal with the loss next spring of the state's General Assistance Medical Care program.

The County Board decides on the remaining services to fund based on its own priorities, which have focused recently on housing and job programs, Haats said.

As of Friday, Neighborhood Involvement Program (NIP) counseling programs for rape and anxiety were slated for county cuts amounting to $147,000. That's a third of the budget for both programs, which would force staff layoffs and reduced hours, said NIP president Patsy Bartley.

"The more we cut away at infrastructure, the less client capability we have," she said.

Judy Halper, CEO of the century-old Jewish Family and Children's Service of Minneapolis, said that last year the county cut its family/school stabilization program from $150,000 to $80,000. Now it's being zeroed out, she said.

"All of us agency executives, what we're really concerned about is the safety net," she said. "If our ability to provide services to the most vulnerable people is decreased, what's going to happen to them?"