Counties’ social service funding suffering in recent budget cuts
The rash of state budget cuts to counties tend to affect funding for social services, a NACo survey of state county associations found.
While recent budget crunches have forced states to reconcile revenue drops by cutting their budgets, many states have done so by reducing the amount of funding they give counties. Of 12 survey respondents, only North Dakota reported no loss in state funding.
Most associations report that their members dealt with the cuts by adjusting their personnel policies — they instituted hiring freezes, did not give raises, limited benefit increases — and cutting social services.
“Cuts to county social services have been the hardest to stomach,” said Gini Pingenot, policy and research director for Colorado Counties Inc. “Social service caseloads continue to increase, and the state gives counties very little funding to help us address the administrative costs of processing and determining eligibility for the various programs we administer for the state.”
In Colorado, social services are supervised at the state level but administered by counties.
“Right now, it’s the most we can do to protect the roughly $30 million we get from the state to help us offset the cost of administrating these programs,” Pingent said. “In the face of growing caseloads, the state isn’t going to be increasing their level of assistance so that means counties are on the hook to address these rising administrative costs.”
New Hampshire reduced funding for mental health providers, which increases costs to county correctional facilities to fill in the gap in care. New Hampshire Association of Counties Executive Director Betsy Miller said the state has significantly reduced nursing home reimbursement rates, even as Medicaid caseloads have increased more than predicted. The North Carolina Association of County Commissions reports a $40 million reduction in mental health funding, on top of $150 million in other funding cuts to that state’s counties.
In some cases, as in California, the cuts to social services are on top of other state-related funding changes.
“Counties have been impacted by the recession as well and have had to make reductions in their budget before dealing with impacts from the state,” said Paul McIntosh, executive director of the California State Association of Counties. “While many of the Health and Human Services cuts are in the form of reduced benefits or payments, counties have many times stepped up to keep programs at minimum standards.
“The state has under-funded the administrative costs of HHS programs since 2001. That gap is now over $1 billion a year,” McIntosh added. “Many counties have put local dollars into child welfare programs, as an example, because they did not want to jeopardize the lives of foster children.”
But cutting budget allocations to counties isn’t the only way states are putting more pressure on counties.
Sonny Brasfield, executive director Association of County Commissions of Alabama, said: “There have been administrative attempts by some state agencies to shift some costs to the county level. But at this time no significant administrative responsibilities have been redirected to the county commissions.”
Alabama did cut its total allocation to counties, but the reduction reflected a decrease in shared tax revenues rather than an effort to reduce the counties’ portion of any tax proceeds, Brasfield said.
Iowa State Association of Counties Executive Director William R. Peterson said counties in his state are revising their purchasing plans in light of budget cuts.
“Counties are also delaying expenditures for equipment and increasing the amount of time in service for equipment before replacement,” he said. “This strategy will also apply to various expenditures for maintenance of facility and other types of capital expenditures that can be delayed — including road projects.”
Utah counties are fighting back by putting limits on the number of state prisoners they will accept into county jails.
Nebraska Association of County Officials Executive Directory Larry Nix said many of his member counties will take money from reserves to cover their losses of revenue.
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