Family services dept. on six-week funding
Howell department on tenuous financial footing
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

The Howell Youth and Family Services Depart-ment just got a six-week stay, thanks to a $50,000 grant confirmation received by the municipality last week.

Finance Officer Jeffrey Filiatreault said the grant from the New Jersey Division of Addiction Services means the department, which due to budget constraints was scheduled for elimination July 1, will continue to function for about another six weeks.

Howell Mayor Joseph M. DiBella and the Township Council were expected to adopt a budget amendment at Tuesday night’s meeting that already had the Youth and Family Services Department struck from this year’s $36.7 million municipal budget.

Over the past few weeks, as lobbying efforts intensified to retain the department and other jobs that were scheduled to be eliminated, the governing body, with the exception of Councilman Peter Tobasco, held to its position that cutting the department was necessary in order to keep this year’s municipal tax increase to 5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. Without the cuts, the tax increase would have been 6.5 cents per $100, according to municipal officials.

During the budget process, the focus turned to adopting initiatives that could make certain positions, as well as the Youth and Family Services Department, self-sustaining.

When the budget was introduced in May, 19 full-time jobs and six part-time jobs were due to be eliminated effective July 1. That included the entire Youth and Family Services Department which has been in existence for more than 20 years.

As of the June 21, the job elimination numbers had been reduced to 11 full-time jobs and the original six part-timers still being let go.

At that same meeting, DiBella — in responding to resident Doug Cresson’s criticism of the council’s decision to eliminate the Youth and Family Services Department — said that receiving county grants meant that Howell’s Youth and Family Services Department would have to provide services to any Monmouth County resident.

The mayor said he did not believe it was fair for Howell residents to have to foot the bill for a service that was available to the county at large.

Reached after the meeting, Youth and Family Services Department Director Holli Toline was asked if her department does treat non-Howell residents.

Toline said it was true that the contract between Howell’s Youth and Family Services Department and the county did include a provision for the treatment of county residents. However, she said that stipulation of treatment only extended to substance abuse and was only applicable in the event there were no other Howell residents waiting for the same service.

According to Toline, who has headed the department since its inception more than two decades ago, due to a waiting list of Howell residents that has existed since the department began, not one non-Howell resident has ever received treatment from her department.

The total annual payroll for the Youth and Family Services Department, which consists of six treatment personnel, one administrative assistant and Toline, is $393,468. Filiatreault said the grant confirmation received last week led to Township Manager Bruce Davis acting on Monday to extend the department’s so-called “pink slips” for another six weeks.

When asked if this means the department would be forced to limp along with staff members relying on funding that for at least the next few months will be sporadic and indefinite, Filiatreault conceded this was so.

When asked about her staff members’ indefinite status, Toline said it was “sad” that she and her department personnel had to work with the imminent threat of unemployment looming before them for the foreseeable future.

Davis said officials are working “feverishly” to get the Youth and Family Services Department running under its own steam through the awarding of grants, insurance payments and another creative source. He said officials are preparing the documentation necessary for Howell to start a 501C corporation that will be used to offset funding for the Youth and Family Services Department as well as to fund other municipal initiatives.

Filiatreault noted that the new initiatives could take months before they are up and running on their own. He said although there are no guarantees as yet, he saw last week’s awarding of the $50,000 grant for the Youth and Family Services Department as a good omen since funding tends to follow funding once it has been established.