Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994 TAG: 9405250143
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By ROBERT FREIS and BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Several of the workers have been at the New River Valley Workshop for much of their adult lives, but all will be laid off June 30.
As a result, family members are angry and concerned for the workers' future.
"It seems like they're taking the service away ... [and] letting them sit at home with nothing to do," Garnett Williams said.
Mike Williams, his 38-year-old son, has worked at the New River Valley Workshop since he was a teen-ager.
He and the nine others were told last week that the New River Valley Community Services Board will no longer subsidize their work for the New River Valley Workshop.
Lynn Chenault, the board's executive director, said his agency is paring its contract with the New River Valley Workshop because of "unrelenting pressure" on its budget.
Funding shortages and inflation are the culprits, he said, adding: "Something had to give."
The Community Services Board's contract with the New River Valley Workshop was selected as a budget target because its "sheltered" environment is obsolete for some disabled adults, he said.
The contemporary focus is assisting mentally disabled adults to live or work in mainstream environments, he said.
The board's staff will work with the laid-off workshop employees to find new jobs, Chenault said. However, because of the slow economy, high unemployment and staff shortages, he can't guarantee they will get work.
"Knowing the people involved, I'd say about one or two may be successful. The rest will end up sitting at home," Huff said.
The New River Valley Workshop is a private, nonprofit organization that provides a variety of vocational and rehabilitative services for the mentally disabled. A significant part of the workshop's $3.2 million annual budget involves manufacturing and other services at several area locations, said Executive Director Bob Huff.
The loss of the $25,000 community services contract is more of a blow to those who will lose their jobs than to financial operations of the New River Valley Workshop, Huff said.
The workshop employs about 100, with two-thirds of the work force classified as mentally disabled. Employees are salaried, have a benefits package and can earn promotions.
"In terms of opportunity and choice, what we offer is as good as anything you'll find anywhere else," Huff said. "Other programs won't serve our people as well."
Parents of some workers, accompanied by Montgomery County Circuit Court Clerk Allan C. Burke, asked the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors on Monday to help save their jobs.
Burke said five Montgomery County residents among those to be laid off could not handle working outside the program. "These people require a special work environment," he said.
Paul Graham, a food science professor at Virginia Tech, said the five have worked 69 years collectively at the sheltered workshop.
Leola Graham said their daughter, Cathy, would not do well outside the workshop.
Supervisors Chairman Larry Linkous pledged to get the parents answers to their questions.
Supervisor Nick Rush went further, noting there are "several recourses the Board of Supervisors could take" against the Community Services Board.
He suggested that the supervisors could take funds from the community services budget and place it in a special account that would be released only if the workshop participants are allowed to continue in the program.
Such a quid pro quo might ensure "that the Montgomery County citizens who have been served by this service for so many years aren't just left out on the street," Rush said.
Chenault said such an action by the board would be unprecedented and possibly illegal.
The county budgeted $105,992 for mental health and retardation services through the Community Services Board in the fiscal year that begins July 1, a 5 percent increase over this year.
The board, however, had asked for $119,820, and had warned that without such an increase "it would lead to reductions in services," according to a statement included with the budget request submitted last winter.
Montgomery County contributes the most of any New River Valley locality both financially and in the number of clients. It paid 41 percent of the $245,844 in local funding this year and accounted for 5,570 participants, or 48 percent.
The Community Services Board has a $6.3 million budget this year, paid for with fees and local, state and federal funds.
Chenault said the cutback will reduce the positions it funds at the New River Valley Workshop from 16 to six.
Huff said those workers who have the capacity to understand have been told their jobs will be over in a month. "About half won't know what it means until it's over," he added.
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