Grand Forks County Social Services staff are working to figure out how $245 million in mandatory budget cuts at the state level will affect their department's budget.
The cuts come in response to a projected shortfall of $1 billion in state revenue and will likely impact contracts Social Services has with the state and reimbursements the county receives for other services.
"From my perspective, our revenue will not increase and will be frozen at this level on some programs or could potentially decrease a little bit," said Lynn Johnson, the department's business manager. "How much that's going to be, I don't know yet."
Last fall, the Grand Forks County Commission approved Social Service's $8.1 million operating budget for 2016. In total, $381,000 of its revenues are classified as intergovernmental, which includes several sources of funding from state agencies.
The county contracts and receives reimbursements from the Department of Human Services, which had to shed nearly $54 million to meet a mandated 4.05 percent in budget cuts, known as allotment. The cuts, effective July 1, were announced Thursday and Johnson said the department's supervisors had yet to meet to talk about the impact.
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DHS, the state's largest agency, has a $1.3 billion budget and about 2,060 employees.
Trims to the DHS budget include changing program eligibility requirements, delaying funding increases for raises and programs, keeping spots open in waiver and voucher programs, and putting off equipment purchases.
"Normally every July 1, according to the state fiscal calendar, we receive increases on some of our contracts and some of our programs," Johnson said. "Our understanding is we will not be receiving those this year and no inflationary increases. That will affect, for example, any increases in our contracts for family preservation services and child protection assessments."
Some contracted services are fee based and Johnson said fee amounts won't increase as they normally do. Other fees are decreasing, she said, such as DHS' homemaker service, which finds qualified individuals to perform household tasks such as cleaning and laundry for clients. The program faces a $400,000 cut.
Another program affected is state child-care assistance. About 500 families across the state will no longer qualify for the assistance because eligibility requirements will be changed in an effort to save DHS about $5 million.
Johnson said because that cut is based on clients' eligibility, it may not affect the county department's budget.
