The Great Funding Roller Coaster

Funding for community action agencies is like a roller coaster. Six months ago I was worried that we were going to use more than $300,000 in agency reserve funds to account for deficits in Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), Head Start, Weatherization, and Foster Grandparents. Today, I am confidant we will make it through the year with a balanced budget for the first time since I have been at CMCA. We have leveled the roller coaster through tireless advocacy, innovative and responsible management and budgeting, and a little bit of luck. Let me explain. Two of our programs experienced "rescissions" this year. Essentially that means our federal funders decided that they can't really afford the contracts we have in place. WIA experienced a rescission of more than $100,000 and Foster Grandparents experienced a $7,000 rescission. Our employment and training department was already spread thin by hiring freezes required by our contractor and ever increasing demands. We planned to maintain our current staffing and absorb the deficit from our CSBG reserves to see if funding is restored next year while seeking additional grants elsewhere in the meantime. Joyce Davis was relentless in her pursuit of additional funds and worked with Anita Sanderson and the Central Region Workforce Investment Board (CWIB) to restore the entire deficit last month. LIHEAP and CSBG were written as deficit budgets last year because there is just more work than we have staff to accomplish. In January and February however, Missouri granted more LIHEAP funds that both filled our staffing needs and compensated some of our CSBG staff who had been doing LIHEAP work. Angela Hirsch and Anita worked diligently to rework the budget with these changing parameters to live within our means. Head Start funding has been stagnant for years. The only increase we have seen in the last seven years has been a 1.5% cost of living increase that didn't even come close to catching up to all of our rising costs. During that time more of our teaching staff has earned degrees and national accountability measures have squeezed our budget tight. Mernell King is a brilliant manager that has been able to re-organize our Head Start structure (twice in the last two years) in a way that both makes our budget work and maintains a high level of quality. Significant grants have been written and awarded to her team for Healthy Smiles, Connect for Kids, and Fathers First, and more are on the way. The initiatives help to support our administrative costs and enhance the quality and comprehensiveness of our Head Start program and agency. Our Weatherization program (Wx) also experienced a budget hiccup that was just bad timing. The state changed one of its regulations about how we are funded and the end result was the $47,000 from a '07 contract with Ameren got lost in the shuffle. After going around and around with Ameren and the Department of Natural Resources (our Wx funder), Teresa House found a solution that everyone can agree on. It is not a perfect solution as we still feel like we are losing $47,000 but it won't hit us until next year when we can at least plan for it. The point of all of this is that this is no way to run an organization. Our state and federal governments are not supporting our programs consistently and I believe that we have to find revenue from different sources that at least give us some control over how much we get and how we use the funds. To that end, we continue to plan for fund raising strategies and social enterprises that will generate revenue we can use to plug holes in our grant budgets and ultimately move us closer to our mission of empowering individuals and families to achieve self-reliance.