Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 14, 1995 TAG: 9503140087
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Many social service agencies faced drastic budget cuts when the 1995 General Assembly convened, but the state's 50 local Offices on Youth - including programs in Montgomery and Pulaski counties - faced a more severe fate: budgetary extinction.
After an uncertain winter, the offices earned a reprieve when the legislature passed a last-minute bill to continue their funding for another year.
``This has probably been the closest call I've seen in the 15 years I've been here,'' said Terri Gregory, director of the Pulaski County program.
The two offices coordinate community programs for teen-agers that are designed to reduce substance abuse, teen pregnancy and crime.
Their activities are funded about 50-50 by local and state dollars. Both programs in the New River Valley are small operations, with only one or two full-time employees. Neither has an annual budget in excess of $75,000.
Why their state funding - a relatively modest $1.4 million this year for all 50 offices - was targeted for elimination by both the Wilder and Allen administrations puzzles Office on Youth staff and volunteers.
``It's very frustrating,'' said Marcy Schnitzer, head of the Montgomery County Office on Youth advisory board. ``I don't see the need going away.''
Mae Keith, a mother, values the after-school program at Christiansburg's Old Farm Village apartment complex. She wrote her legislators, asking them to restore Office on Youth funding.
Four of her children attend the program three times a week. ``I feel like it's a good program,'' Keith said. ``If kids don't have some kind of structure, you don't know what they're getting into.''
Gregory said Office on Youth programs address large problems with limited resources. The Old Farm Village after-school program lets kids play games, watch movies or go bowling under supervision of student volunteers from Virginia Tech and Radford University.
``I think it's nice to come down here. It's something to do,'' said 13-year-old B.J. Hall, a Christiansburg Middle School student.
The local Offices on Youth also operate parenting classes, a clothes closet, pregnancy prevention classes and public forums on youth-related issues.
``We're not a well-known agency,'' said Russ Rice, director of the Montgomery office. ``A lot of our functions are behind the scenes. But the impacts are significant.''
The preventive approach taken by Offices on Youth toward juvenile delinquency may explain the state's lack of respect, officials say. ``Prevention programs are poorly understood and little respected,'' Schnitzer said. ``The current emphasis seems to be on punishment of offenders rather than prevention.''
Gregory doubts the programs would be funded privately if state money is lost.
``Without us, what's going to happen to these people? That's what keeps going through my head,'' she said. ``I really worry about the families I deal with.''
Schnitzer predicted,``The community wouldn't realize the consequences of the program being phased out until it was gone.''
Those involved with the Montgomery and Pulaski offices spent a significant amount of time over the past several months lobbying state legislators to restore funding. The effort was successful, but draining and distracting, they say.
``How can you talk about developing programs if you don't know if your office is going to be there?'' Schnitzer asked.
Chances are, the budgetary battle will be fought again. The state already has warned Offices on Youth it plans to go after their funding again.
``There's nothing guaranteed in this world,'' Gregory said. ``You just have to do the best you can.''
by CNB