
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, September 11, 1995                   TAG: 9509110128
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

U.S. OFFICIALS WARN LOCALES OF FUND CUTS

Federal officials are warning their local counterparts that proposed federal budget cuts would mean added burdens on local services.

Representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Labor spoke Thursday to 65 local officials.

The meeting came as Congress returned to Washington to take up spending bills that include deep cuts Republicans say are needed to balance the budget by 2002.

``Changes in Washington are on fast forward,'' said Karen A. Miller, the mid-Atlantic representative for HUD.

The fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Huge sections of the federal government will be shut down if President Clinton and the GOP-controlled Congress do not agree on the budget before then.

``The House has determined that HUD's affordable housing and economic development programs will take a cumulative 25 percent hit, and that means so will Virginia,'' Miller said. ``Unlike the number of homeless, which will probably not decline precipitously 23 days from now, homeless funding is to be cut by 40 percent.''

Lynn Hardy Yeakel's department ``is in the prevention business. I'm here to talk about another kind of prevention today: the prevention of a reckless national direction that would diminish the continued ability of my department and others to prevent some of our nation's problems.'' Yeakel, a former Democratic congresswoman, is regional director of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Dan Shavez, a senior officer of the Department of Labor, warned of cuts of 30 percent to 50 percent in Virginia jobs programs.

W. Michael McCabe, Philadelphia-based regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told the officials, ``There's going to be a lot more pressure on you all.''

He named 10 cleanup projects in Virginia that could end. ``We need to approach this in a more surgical fashion, not with the meat ax the House of Representatives has handed us.''

by CNB