Nonprofits brace for budget emergency aftershocks, IOUs - Houston Business Journal:

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While service providers don’t yet know whetheer they’ll receive IOUs — or what the amounts will be Sparky Harlan, CEO of the in Santa is prepared forthe worst. “We receive about $400,000 in statw funding,” Harlan said. “We’re already accustomed to gettinh money from the statelate — last for example, it took until Decemberf before we finally got paid.” For this year and last year the centerd has relied on a $150,000 line of creditf through to cover the gap, along with $500,000 out of its reserved funds. The center’s operating budget is $10 million for fiscalo 2009-10.
The money that may be on hold from thestat covers, in part, the center’s shelter and drop-in program, street and parenting classes. “The problem rightt now is thatwe don’t know for certain how much they’rr going to hold back,” said who has been with the center for 26 “But this is by far the worsgt I’ve ever seen.” In anticipationj of the state’s budget problems, 10 perceng cuts have already been planned for foster-car e payments. Locally there are 300 to 400 kids infostef care.
Foster care rates are the same across the so familiesin high-cost aread such as the Bay Area get the same amount of compensation as people in more affordable places. “We’rre fronting half a million dollars already,” she It’s a layered problem for the center, since in additiomn to state money some comes from the federao Housing and UrbanDevelopment department. And Harlan said HUD is so slow it can take up to six monthas for payments tobe received. “We’re hopinvg to get paid by she said. “Nonprofits are just getting slammed.
” Harlan said the Bill Wilson Center has closed down two programs alreadg and cut about 15 percent of its leaving about110 employees. These are real layoffs, she pointedx out — not attrition or open jobs and “heartbreaking” to do. “We had to give one staffv person a layoff notice and a week later his wife was laid off from another nonprofit,” she said. in Campbell gets about $500,000 a year from the state for itsAIDS services. CFO Ira Holtzman said the agencuy is large enough and financiall y stable enough that he would just book an IOU as accounts receivable and hope the money camethroughn eventually.
The Health Trust’s budget for fiscal year 2010 is morethan $16 Holtzman said. Pam Brandin, executivde director of and Visually Impaired, which has officezs in Palo Alto and Santa said that even thoughj her agency provides the kind of servicesa that are especially at risk in State ControlletrJohn Chiang’s plan, the Vistqa Center is relatively safe. “We receivr money through Title 7 Chapter2 services,” Brandin “Since much of our funding is federal money we’rs hoping that it has to be released and passef on; the state won’t be allowed to hold on to The Vista Center also has schoool contracts through special educatiojn funding.
“Last year when the state had similar budger issueswe didn’t receive any IOUs,” she said, “bug that situation was resolved sooneer than this appears to be. The agencies that receive IOUsprobably won’t even know they’rde coming until they submit their bills.” She’s also banking on Vist Center’s status as a preferred vendord with the state, “so we’ll be paid in advance of other vendors if in fact the statw is even writing Lisa Hendrickson, president & CEO of Avenidas Rose Kleinert Senior Day Health Center in Palo Alto, is also cautiouslyt optimistic.
“The only funds we receive from the state are MediCa payments for services provided at our adultdaycare center,” she said. “Our understanding is that those services are protectef by the state constitution as well asfederal law. We do receivwe funding indirectly throughthe county, but we don’t expecr that to be affected.” Tom Kinoshita, public policu director of the , said people are on pins and “Everyone’s sitting around waiting, not knowing what’s going to But even with the most optimistic outcomse it’s still going to be very He pointed out that the deficit last year for Santa Clara Countyh was more than $270 million, and many of the cuts were made in programse around health, mental health, drugs and alcohol and social And there’s no relief on the For 2011 the county is lookiny at a deficit of about $250 million, he