DSS story is example of fund crisis--ISSUE: State budget crunch

OUR VIEW: Loss of DSS services will be felt around S.C.

It's not unusual for people to believe that government agencies can have their budgets cut without the public feeling any pain. Bureaucracy is a favorite citizen target.

Education has been screaming loud and long about cutbacks amid the state of South Carolina's fiscal crisis. But what about other agencies?

In a sobering assessment of impact, the S.C. Department of Social Services this past week laid out the bad news.

First, the agency has eliminated or reduced more than $13 million in contracts. The contracts include about $10.5 million in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money for after-school programs.

"We are working with the after-school programs involved to phase out their funding," DSS state Director Kim Aydlette said. "These are good programs which provide a valuable service to their communities, but DSS is facing extraordinarily challenging times and is forced to make incredibly difficult decisions.

"We have to ensure that we maintain sufficient resources to protect abused and neglected children and vulnerable adults while also working to feed the hungry and move clients from welfare to work," she said.

The affected contracts include Communities In Schools of South Carolina, the S.C. Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, the Catawba Indian Nation, the Paxen Group, and programs for Roosevelt Village and Arthurtown in Richland County. DSS also has cut contracts with the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, Family Financial Literacy and the Columbia Urban League.

The cuts are designed to help the agency manage a recent 3.73 percent across-the-board cut in February, which came on the heels of a mandated 5 percent cut in December. Aydlette also has ordered an agency-wide hiring freeze and offered staff voluntary furloughs and early retirement programs.

The most recent cut means the loss of about $3.8 million in state funds, and that also affects the amount of federal money that the agency can access to help clients. State funds are used as a match for federal funds, and agency officials say that $3.8 million in state money could have leveraged about $6 million in federal funds.

During the past two years, the state budget for DSS has been cut by more than $38 million.

The House Ways and Means Committee has proposed cutting another 10.27 percent from the DSS budget, which would mean an additional $10 million cut and would give the agency about $88 million for next year.

The agency's original total state appropriation for fiscal 2001-02 was to have been $126 million.

Aydlette said DSS is preparing a Reduction in Force plan to respond to the anticipated cut.

"We're going to do all that we can do to maintain the quality and quantity of services to our clients," she said.

That will be virtually impossible. The state budget crisis is hitting home in many places -- and the public will be feeling it more and more.

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