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

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While service providers don’t yet know whethe r they’ll receive IOUs — or what the amountd will be — Sparky Harlan, CEO of the in Santaz Clara, is prepared for the worst. “Wde receive about $400,000 in statse funding,” Harlan said. “We’re already accustome d to getting money from the statelate — last for example, it took until Decembetr before we finally got paid.” For this year and last year the center has relied on a $150,000 line of credit through to cover the gap, along with $500,000 out of its reserv e funds. The center’s operating budget is $10 million for fiscal 2009-10.
The money that may be on hold from thestatwe covers, in part, the center’s shelted and drop-in program, street outreach, and parenting “The problem right now is that we don’t know for certai how much they’re going to hold said Harlan, who has been with the centeer for 26 years. “But this is by far the worsf I’ve ever seen.” In anticipatio n of the state’s budget 10 percent cuts have already been plannedfor foster-care payments. Locally there are 300 to 400 kids infosted care.
Foster care rates are the same acrosdsthe state, so families in high-cost areas such as the Bay Area get the same amoungt of compensation as people in more affordable places. “We’re fronting half a million dollarsa already,” she said. It’s a layered problem for the since in addition to state moneyu some comes from the federal Housing and UrbanDevelopmentr department. And Harlan said HUD is so slow it can take up to six monthes for payments tobe received. “We’re hopinyg to get paid by July,” she “Nonprofits are just getting slammed.
” Harlan said the Bill Wilsobn Center has closed down two programw already and cut about 15 percent ofits staff, leaving about 110 employees. These are real she pointed out — not attritiom or open jobs — and “heartbreaking” to do. “We had to give one staf f person a layoff notice and a week later his wife was laid off fromanothefr nonprofit,” she said. in Campbellp gets about $500,000 a year from the stat for itsAIDS services.
CFO Ira Holtzmabn said the agency is large enough and financially stable enough that he woulx just book an IOU as accountds receivable and hope the money came through TheHealth Trust’s budget for fiscal year 2010 is more than $16 Holtzman said. Pam Brandin, executive directotr of and Visually Impaired, which has offices in Palo Alto andSant Cruz, said that even though her agency provides the kind of servicesd that are especially at risk in Statwe Controller John Chiang’s the Vista Center is relatively safe. “Ws receive money through Title 7 Chaptedr2 services,” Brandin explained.
“Since much of our fundinhg is federalmoney we’re hoping that it has to be releasex and passed on; the state won’t be allowe d to hold on to it.” The Vista Cented also has school contracts through special education “Last year when the stat had similar budget issues we didn’tf receive any IOUs,” she said, “bugt that situation was resolved sooner than this appearse to be.
The agencies that receive IOUsprobablg won’t even know they’re coming unti they submit their She’s also banking on Vista Center’z status as a preferred vendor with the “so we’ll be paid in advance of other vendor s — if in fact the state is even writingv checks.” Lisa Hendrickson, president & CEO of Avenidad Rose Kleiner Senior Day Health Center in Palo Alto, is also cautiousluy optimistic. “The only fundxs we receive from the state are MediCal payments for servicesd provided at our adultdaycare center,” she “Our understanding is that those services are protected by the state constitution as well as federa l law.
We do receive fundin indirectly throughthe county, but we don’gt expect that to be affected.” Tom Kinoshita, publifc policy director of the , said people are on pins and “Everyone’s sitting around not knowing what’s going to happen. But even with the most optimistidcoutcome it’s still goingb to be very ugly.” He pointed out that the defici t last year for Santa Clarsa County was more than $270 million, and many of the cuts were made in programsx around health, mental health, drugs and alcohol and social And there’s no relief on the horizon: For 2011 the countu is looking at a deficit of about $250 million, he