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Putnam Family and Community Services Agency Begs County for Assistance
Private agency in financial straits due to mandated County employees
by Margaret Sternberg
The not-for-profit Putnam Family and Community Services Agency ("PFCS") is struggling to provide services and stay solvent according to Treasurer Joseph Fonseca who, along with Executive Director Edythe S. Schwartz, made a plea of quiet desperation before the County Legislature's Health, Social, Educational & Environmental Committee at its May 16, 2006 meeting.
The PFCS is asking the County for a $139,239 increase to their budget for the current year. The extra funds would be used to cover the increased cost of compensation for the five remaining County staff of the original 16 the agency was required by an arbitration ruling to retain as employees when the agency was privatized in 1997.
According to Fonseca, the five remaining County employees are members of the County collective bargaining unit and receive the raises and benefits granted by the County to the unit. However, the County has not given the agency the commensurate funds to pay for the County employees within the PFCS, resulting in the agency having to fund the raises and benefits from its own funds and, in doing so, having to cut back on services and maintain waiting lists for services. Fonseca said the salaries, benefits and pension opportunities for the non-county workers are either not comparable or not available because the PFCS cannot afford them on its own. In addition, two staff positions remain unfilled.
Fonseca said the differential over the years has grown to over $921,000, and "we cannot sustain that."
County Commissioner of Social Services and Mental Health Michael J. Piazza confirmed that the monies the County gives to the PFCS have not kept pace with the salaries and benefits of the five employees and that "the issue is a real issue; we certainly are aware of it." He said the county is still looking for a resolution.
Committee Chairman Sam Oliverio asked Piazza whether the employees could be assigned to another department "that is full county, Department of Health," eliciting Piazza's comment that "it's always a possibility." However, Piazza said, of the people who are at PFCS, there is "no title remaining in county government for those positions [sic]."
Drawing, he said, on his experience as a school administrator in Putnam Valley, Oliverio commented on how good the programs are that are offered by the PFCS and said he did not want to see the programs put at risk.
The committee decided to contact County Executive Robert Bondi to advise him the Legislature would like to revisit the issue next month with a representative from Bondi's office, Commissioner Piazza and a representative from Director of Personnel Paul Eldridge's office.
In other business, the committee received correspondence on Household Hazardous waste Cleanup Days. The first will be held June 24 at the Kent Recycling Center, and the second will be held October 21 at Fahnestock Park. Legislator Tony Hay, asked for an update on the recycling center expansion, characterized the situation as "worse than a joke, what's going on," describing Gordon Maxwell, the Recycling Coordinator, as "sitting on a box, collecting money to register people." Legislator Vinny Tamagna became irate at the information and, at the request of committee chairman Oliverio, the committee determined to send a letter to County Executive Bondi to hire a person to collect the fees so that Maxwell would be free to evaluate the financial numbers for the recycling program as a whole. Legislator Regina Morini, a member of the Health Committee and Chairwoman of the Personnel Committee, said she would attend to the hiring of a person to collect fees at the next meeting of the Personnel Committee.
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