Social service groups decry likely state budget cuts

McHenry County social service groups on Tuesday offered to help solve the state's budget impasse.

Representatives from six county agencies that serve at-risk clients said lawmakers could use their employee conflict resolution process to iron out their differences over the budget.

The General Assembly's budget includes dramatic cuts to funding for social services. McHenry County's social service agencies have estimated they would lose more than $6.7 million and be forced to stop serving 12,300 clients under the doomsday budget.

But instead of backing Gov. Pat Quinn's call for an income tax increase, the agencies' leaders on Tuesday blasted Quinn and state legislative leaders for failing, in their view, to make a good-faith effort to reach a budget compromise.

"It's time for somebody to show leadership, and Quinn needs to do that," said Lorraine Kopczynski, president of the Pioneer Center for Human Services, a McHenry-based organization that serves people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses.

At a Tuesday news conference in McHenry, the agencies' directors detailed how the people they serve would suffer under the doomsday budget. Some agencies, they said, face cuts of as much as 75 percent in their overall budgets - which would force many services to end.

"We have provided a safety net for the citizens of McHenry County," said Bob Martens, CEO of Family Service and Community Mental Health Center. "That safety net is being torn apart piece by piece."

If the state slashes 75 percent of the budget for Turning Point of McHenry County, the only domestic violence shelter in the county, shelter representatives might not be able to show up at the hospital when women are raped or help women obtain emergency orders of protection, Executive Director Jane Farmer said.

Options and Advocacy for McHenry County would lose an estimated $77,000 for people with developmental disabilities.

"The services available to this population continue to be reduced every year," said Cindy Sullivan, executive director for the organization. "People won't have anyone to call."