Allocations to nonprofits at issue in budget battle

GREENWICH — An ongoing dispute over the budget is one of the first issues for the town’s new commissioner of the Department of Human Services to tackle.

The problem began during the budget process in spring, when the Board of Estimate and Taxation rolled back the proposed operating budgets for all town departments to 201920 levels because of the coronavirus crisis. That meant eliminating all increases that departments had expected for 2020-21.

For the Department of Human Services, that meant a reduction of $71,000. At issue now is not the cut — but how it was implemented. The BET applied the reduction entirely to the case managers salary line. But the department’s board and leadership wanted to spread it out across the budget.

Lat week, the department appeared before the BET’s Budget Committee to request a transfer of $55,719 to cover salaries for case managers. But the Budget Committee did not

show a willingness to approve the transfer and the request was withdrawn.

On Friday, Human Services Commissioner Demetria Nelson said she was “thankful for the feedback” from the Budget Committee. The Board of Human Services will likely discuss the issue at its October meeting, she said, then submit a revised request to the committee in November.

“The department will meet with our business office manager and with our board to revise our budget,” Nelson said.

Budget Committee Chair Leslie Tarkington said she would welcome Nelson back and would likely talk with her and other department members before any

future meeting. The issue prompted a lengthy discussion between Nelson, members of the Board of Human Services and the Board of Estimate and Taxation’s Budget Committee at the meeting last Tuesday.

Other possible solutions are on the table, such as finding savings in temporary salaries to apply to full-time case managers or seeking an interim appropriation.

The Board of Human Services approved a plan to apply the cut across the budget: $15,000 from case manager salaries; $22,719 from administration salaries, which was made possible by the retirement of former commissioner Alan Barry and others; and $33,000 from funds slated for community partnerships.

But the BET applied the

entire cut to the case manager salary line.

The $55,719 that the department wants transferred would be removed from the other budget lines and applied to pay for the case managers. Any transfer must be approved by the BET.

Board Chair Alan Gunzburg has repeatedly said the BET’s decision was arbitrary and went against the will of the board and the department’s leadership. The money is needed to pay employees and keep up with “the growing number of people we’re feeding, that we make sure have safe spaces and are staying healthy” during the pandemic, he said.

Every year, the Department of Human Services provides funding to outside nonprofits that benefit the community. Barry and the board decided earlier

this year to apply a $33,000 reduction in the funds slated for Kids in Crisis and the YWCA Greenwich. At the time, Barry said it was a “really, really difficult decision,” but he said he felt those two nonprofits would be able to find money elsewhere.

At Tuesday’s meeting, though, the BET Budget Committee said it wanted the money to still go to those nonprofits.

“If we’ve committed to these organizations, we would want to follow through with our commitments, especially at a time like this when they’re counting on us,” Budget Committee member Debra Hess said.

Budget Committee member Leslie Moriarty said the money slated for the nonprofit organizations “should not have been a

source of funds to meet the needs of the department.” She said that would not have been “in alignment” with the BET’s actions to keep budgets flat.

“If the department has needs, the recourse, I think should have been to come back for an interim appropriation,” Moriarty said. “It should be discussed over the level of services needed, why you need it (and) where the possible sources are so you might have access to those funds.”

Moriarty also called for conversation by the BET to determine the “real impact” of the budget changes when it comes to meeting community needs.

The Representative Town Meeting’s Health and Human Services Committee endorsed the money for case managers, as well as the reduction to the two nonprofits before it was

changed by the BET, Gunzburg said. And he questioned the decision to cut the budget for the Department of Human Services as the need for its services increased during the pandemic.

“We were quite surprised as a board and as a department that during a pandemic we would have to have our budget reduced by $71,000,” Gunzburg said.

He added that the call to reduce the allocations to Kids in Crisis and the YWCA Greenwich came from Barry.

“We are still in the middle of a pandemic and trying desperately to take care of the clients that we had prior to the pandemic and all of the new clients that have shown up,” Gunzburg said.