AN OPEN LETTER TO A HOUSE DIVIDED

An Open Letter to a House Divided


Andrew Malekoff © October 2012
To the Nassau County Legislature and County Executive: I attended every Nassau County legislative meeting since May 2012 when funding cuts to human services were first addressed. I testified at four of the meetings. I presented illustrations of troubled children and working families and asked what the County’s backup plan was to help them after $7.3 million of tax-free, dedicated red-light camera revenues were shifted to the general fund. You offered no answers.

I provided facts and figures about the astronomical cost for incarceration in the Nassau County Correctional Facility and compared it to the relatively modest cost of preventive community-based services. I asked you where the money would come from if more kids are incarcerated or institutionalized as a result of depleted services. You offered no answers.

More than testifying, though, I listened and watched you interacting with one another and the public. To your credit, although you routinely pointed fingers at one another across the aisle, not one of you questioned the value of the services that have been held hostage for almost four months since the red-light camera funds were rescinded. If your sense of duty forbids these devastating cuts to human services, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, then I ask you to stand by your duty, fearlessly and effectively.

In his Cooper Union address, Lincoln famously declared that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." We know that he was referring to a troubled nation. And, although what is at stake today is vastly different than what was at stake in 1860, what is unmistakable to me, after attending the legislative meetings, is that Nassau County is a house divided against itself. And what was true 150 years ago is still true today: a house divided against itself cannot stand.

I was invited, as a guest, to a meeting of the Federalist Society in September. Although I am not a member, I was very interested in what the guest speaker, NIFA Director George Marlin, had to say. I was hopeful that his remarks might shed additional light on Nassau County’s draconian cuts to vital human services. I did not expect Mr. Marlin to be sympathetic to youth services, for example, but I thought he might help me to better understand the fiscal context and what it would take for positive change to occur.

I was left with a distinct impression that Mr. Marlin, who described himself as a “street-corner conservative,” was not pleased with the fiscal trajectory of Nassau County. Yet, referring to New York State’s challenges, he lauded Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership and ability to find common ground, to work capably with members of both sides of the aisle and to effectively negotiate differences in balancing the state budget.

What a novel idea, I thought: cooperation, negotiation and integrated solutions. I implore you, our Nassau County elected representatives and County Executive, to provide leadership by finding ways to work together for the benefit of all of the people of Nassau County; and, in the process, to find a way to restore the tax-free essential human services funding; and, to do it soon.

ASSAULT ON HUMAN SERVICES

Anton Community Newspapers • 132 East 2nd Street • Mineola, NY 11501

ASSAULT ON HUMAN SERVICES
by Andrew Malekoff© September 20, 2012

September 5, 2012 marked two months since 7.3 million dollars, earmarked to support human services, were shifted to the general fund. We were told that this was due to the Nassau County legislature’s failure to pass $41 million in bonding for property tax refunds. But, it is not that simple.

How did all of this get started? In 2009, then-County Executive Tom Suozzi "enlisted" the county's most vulnerable citizens as unpaid lobbyists to advocate for red-light cameras, cigarette taxes and traffic-violation reform. Mr. Suozzi threatened scores of agencies serving tens of thousands of youths and families that they would be closed down or crippled unless the revenue enhancers were passed through Albany.

Red-light camera legislation passed and local agencies were assured, by unanimous vote of the full Nassau County legislature, that related revenues would become a sustainable source funding for these services. Three years later, that agreement is null and void. Our young people are now the collateral damage in a political war over bonding and redistricting.

More than two months have passed since the July 5, 2012 cuts to human services, which included $1.75 million of chemical dependency treatment funding. Despite extensive testimony, protests and media coverage, not a thing has changed. Advocates, young and old, have held press conferences, prayer vigils and a symbolic funeral for youth services. On August 6, several young people and adults attended a legislative meeting symbolically bound, gagged and blindfolded to point out that youth services were being held hostage.

What is the outcome of all of this activity and attention? Democrat and Republican legislators continue to point fingers and holler at one another in front of hundreds of disbelieving youths and family members who have become regular attendees at legislative meetings as well as activists in addressing this issue.

Youth services organizations that depend almost exclusively on County funds will close in a short time. Agencies with more diversified funding may not go out of business, but will have to shutter critical services such as after-school and summer programs as well as suicide, pregnancy, gang and drug-prevention programs that keep kids safe, provide enriching activities and offer a sense of belonging and relationships with caring adults during the non-school hours.

The developmental tasks necessary for adolescents in our culture to become healthy, functioning adults require great effort and time and more than parent and school support alone. These tasks include forging relationships with peers and adults that lead to the achievement of emotional independence from parents, developing a healthy sexual identity, building a capacity for greater intimacy with peers, learning skills and selecting an economic career; also developing a moral value and an ethical system to guide one’s behavior as well as desiring and employing socially responsible behavior.

Adolescence today is an age of particular vulnerability, a time in which youngsters are experiencing the sexual awakenings of puberty earlier than ever while facing increasing social and educational demands, and experimenting with more freedom, autonomy and choice than ever before. The politically-motivated de-funding of youth services is therefore an attack on the family.

Nassau County’s broken promises and its propensity to use vulnerable young people as pawns in promoting partisan political interests represents a moral failing and a lack of leadership. Our elected representatives on both sides of the aisle should be ashamed of themselves for putting our most vulnerable young people in the political crosshairs. Who among them will stand and deliver to put an end to this madness?

**Andrew Malekoff is Executive Director / CEO, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center

Roslyn Heights, New York 11577 and author of Group Work with Adolescents: Principles and Practice (Guilford Press), now in its second edtion. E-mail: amalekoff@northshorechildguidance.org

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Andrew Malekoff

Submitted to Long Island Newsday on July 16, 2012

The recent spate of politically-motivated funding cuts to essential human services and the ritual recruitment of our neediest citizens as unpaid lobbyists offers a chilling insight into how far Nassau County leadership has fallen.

The Democratic minority on the Nassau County Legislature voted four times against authorizing $41 million in borrowing for tax refunds. Republicans claimed that the Democrats are using their voting leverage to get new election districts redrawn. Democrats asserted that the cuts represented a policy decision by Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano.

In 2009, then-County Executive Tom Suozzi, whose motto for human services was "No Wrong Door," cut funding from 43 agencies serving over 60,000 people. In so doing, he "enlisted" the county's most vulnerable citizens to become his unpaid lobbyists to advocate for red-light cameras, cigarette taxes and traffic violation reform.

Red-light camera legislation was approved in Albany and local agencies were given bi-partisan assurance of restored and sustainable funding. That “reserved” fund was taken off the table by County Executive Ed Mangano as a consequence of the county legislature’s failure to pass the bonding.

When our elected representatives implement politically-motivated cost cutting they demonstrate a loss of empathy. What’s worse, is that they lose all reason. They miss the human toll and they miss the fiscal consequences of their decisions. They are relegated to finger-pointing, tantruming two-year olds hell-bent on getting what they want at any cost.

Our elected representatives miss that they are cutting cost-effective services that keep people out of jail, emergency rooms and costly addictions and mental health institutions. They discount the lives that will be saved by preventing suicide and drug overdoses. They ignore the human and fiscal benefits that quality services bring in effectively addressing homelessness, hunger, runaways, gangs, unemployment, family crises, eating disorders, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy and much more.

Our elected officials have demonstrated, notwithstanding their ever-present availability for photo ops designed to depict a contrary impression, that they have little respect for our most vulnerable citizens. Too harsh an assessment? Let’s face it, behavior talks.

Our services are referred to as “discretionary,” connoting that they are dispensable; which, we have learned, they surely are. We are reminded of this on a regular basis when our funds are slashed and our people are taken hostage to lobby for bonding or red-light cameras and, I am sure, in time, for gambling.

Moody’s Investors Service offers an opinion about the county’s general creditworthiness, or expected loss. I wonder how Nassau County would stack up if there was Moody’s Vulnerable Citizens Service that judged how we treat our most at-risk teenagers or seniors.

During harsh economic times when all of our best efforts are needed to preserve families, the recent cuts to human services will increase the long term burden to the taxpayer. And, it will bear an even greater cost in lives lost, kids plucked from their homes and families splintered and destroyed.

It is time for the people who we elected to represent us to get real.

Andrew Malekoff

Mr. Malekoff is executive director and chief executive for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, New York