Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / UW shakeup cuts deep into social programs
UW shakeup cuts deep into social programs
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published June 20, 2008
Detroit Fundamental changes to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan has several local Catholic agencies cutting staff, dropping services and trying to make do with smaller budgets.
Though United Way has not completely allocated funds for its fiscal year beginning in July, the three main Catholic social services agencies of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties appear to be losing nearly $1 million, combined, in regular funding from the public charity.
Additionally, the Catholic Youth Organization and John Bosco Hall in Detroit, and Vista Maria in Dearborn Heights also are receiving cuts in funding from the United Way.
"We see it as a challenge," said Patrick Heron, president of Catholic Social Services of Wayne County. "It's been a major shift, but we've been a long-term partner with the United Way, and I think they value the work that we do."
Heron noted that the Archdiocese of Detroit was one of the United Way's founding members in Wayne County back in the 1940s, before the recent formation of the United Way of Southeastern Michigan, which serves Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.
Despite the cuts, the three counties' Catholic social service agencies still will receive more than $1.7 million from the United Way.
Last week, the United Way announced it would restructure its grant making to focus on three specific areas: educational preparedness, financial stability and basic needs. Whatever programs fell outside those areas were likely to suffer cuts in funding.
For the Catholic Social Service agencies, most of the cuts came to counseling services, such as family, pregnancy and substance abuse counseling. Here's what the three agencies are looking at:
Catholic Social Services of Wayne County regularly had received $1.25 million per year in grants, which this year will drop to $870,000 more than half of which is for a collaboration with three other institutions for educational preparedness. CSSWC likely will cut 10 full-time positions and close one of its satellite offices, on Van Born Road in Dearborn Heights. The agency has an annual budget of $8 million.
Catholic Social Services of Oakland County had regularly gotten $990,000 per year from the United Way. This year, it will receive $716,000. While significant cuts were made to behavioral health services ($400,000) and pregnancy counseling ($200,000), the agency has new funding of $250,000 to give counseling to seniors in their homes. CSSOC has an annual budget of $7.5 million.
Catholic Services of Macomb saw its funding cut from $454,000 per year three years ago, down to $150,000 this year. Over that time, its staff has been reduced from 12 full-time employees to just five. CSM is the smallest of the three agencies with an annual budget of $2 million.
Though the refocusing of the United Way's mission has been a long-term process and its partners were braced for cuts, local Catholic agencies were still trying to grapple for answers last week.
"We're hoping to be able to write grants for the pregnancy counseling, but I'm very concerned about family counseling," said Marge Huggard, president of CSSOC.
Huggard said the Oakland County service agency sees a lot of low-income families with no health insurance who come in for family counseling. Without the funding from the United Way, it won't have a way to pay for families who don't have insurance.
"It's hard to know what we're going to be able to do," Huggard said. "We have poor people and low-income people who want to have counseling, and they have no means to pay for it."
Heron of CSSWC said his agency would have to refer such requests for counseling to other agencies.
Still, Huggard added, the CSSOC is grateful for the assistance it is still receiving from the United Way, and for the fact that the Catholic nonprofit has always had a voice in the United Way's decision making.
"It is true that we took a 28 percent reduction in dollars from them, but that has more to do with the availability of resources in our community than the fact that the programs that we offer weren't of interest to them," Huggard said. "I simply don't think they had enough money to fund all the things that they wanted to do."
The United Way's shifting came in response to an initiative started in 2005.
The organization, which distributes funds to more than 100 local social service agencies, surveyed 6,500 people in southeastern Michigan to get their opinions on what areas of need are most pressing.
"It's well beyond restructuring donors lists and more toward focusing this United Way on the issues that are identified by 6,500 residents in Southeastern Michigan," said Kelly Green, vice president of marketing and strategy for the United Way.
As donations to the United Way have decreased in recent years from more than $73 million in 2001 to about $58 million in 2007 the needs of the community have increased. This year, the organization received 360 requests for funding, totaling more than $92 million, from local organizations and partnerships.
While cuts in funding will no doubt have a significant impact on the social service agencies, the Catholic nonprofits will remain in alliance with the United Way. Much of their United Way funding comes through grants, but each agency also receives designated funds money collected through the United Way that is earmarked specifically for a certain agency.
For example, the United Way partners with various companies to allow employees to donate regularly through their paychecks. The employee chooses which United Way partner they'd like to benefit, and the United Way passes along the donations, minus a 13.6 percent processing fee, to that organization.
The cuts in United Way grants do not impact the designated funds.
As of this week, the full extent of funding cuts from the United Way weren't known. A final partner list for the United Way likely wouldn't be available for a couple of weeks, Green said.
Despite the drastic reductions in United Way funding for the local Catholic social service agencies, the directors remained hopeful about their respective agencies' futures.
"This has been difficult for us," said Heron. "When you change things as dramatically as this, that's tough. "But we're optimistic. You've got to be in this business."
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