WALKER - Cass County Family Centers are struggling to stay open, because funding sources have reduced or phased out payments. Grants are hard to find these days.
This is the message the five family center directors carried to the county board Tuesday.
Family centers opened in the mid-1990s after Cass County received a PEW Foundation grant to become one of three model sites in the state to develop family support programs.
Cass County/Leech Lake Children's Initiative Collaborative Board formed to administer that private foundation grant. The collaborative has split as much as $75,000 annually among the county's five family centers during the intervening years.
This year, they will split $30,000. That will drop to $15,000 next year and be phased out in 2010. Fewer supplemental grants are available today. Many grants don't allow using the grant to pay overhead costs like utilities and insurance or staff salaries.
There are family centers at Cass Lake, Longville, Pillager, Pine River and Walker. Each community decides what programs it will offer to meet unique needs within the city and surrounding area.
"If families are going to change, you have to stick with them for three years," said Leslie Bouchonville, Pine River-Backus Family Center director. She sees alcohol and drugs playing a huge role, passing from generation to generation.
Cass County Board has referred both the family center directors and school superintendents to the county budget committee to present their needs for more money in 2009.
The prospect for county money will not be rosy, however. Administrator Robert Yochum has told the commissioners they will have to look at cutting some county staff in 2009. There is a county hiring freeze in effect today.
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