Bacon Street Says Future, Kids' Well-Being in Jeopardy

By Desiree Parker Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Colonial Community Service Board’s serious budgetary stress could mean an end to funding another well-known local nonprofit, the youth substance abuse program Bacon Street.

Bacon Street, which relies on the CSB for a third of its funding, has been under contract with the organization for 35 years – since the CSB was first organized in the area. The Bacon Street board of directors and Executive Director Sandy Fagan are reeling after hearing the news mid-February that their contract might not be renewed in July. The news has strained the decades-long relationship between the organizations as Bacon Street administrators desperately try to make the case for keeping their funding – and next Tuesday is their last chance to save it.

Over the past few years, community service boards across the state have lost 10 percent of their state funds. The local CSB, which offers an extensive range of mental and behavioral health services to children, adults and seniors in the Triangle, has also had to figure out how to help more people with less money. On top of budget reductions, patient beds at Eastern State Hospital have been reduced by about 60 while more are being reserved for criminal cases, meaning the CSB caseload is on the rise.

Months ago, the CSB eliminated funding for the popular Family Focus parenting program along with other preventive programming to absorb almost $650,000 in cuts. The newest state budget will also mean more belt-tightening within the CSB, which has reduced its operating budget from $14 million in fiscal year 2009 to $13.2 million in its most recent reduction, according to Executive Director David Coe.

Bacon Street has been receiving progressively less money over the years from the CSB, according to Fagan. In 2007, they received $220,000; in the current fiscal year, they’ve received $154,000 from the CSB out of a total operating budget of about $470,000.

Folks at Bacon Street are not only upset because they received short notice about the pending elimination of the contract, which could jeopardize their other funding sources and put them out of business. They’re also upset because of what the CSB intends to do instead.

Basing its plan on an audit of Bacon Street records in March, the CSB suggested recently to its board that it could hire an additional two staff members to provide an equivalent youth substance abuse treatment program at less cost compared to Bacon Street’s program with eight staff members (reduced from 15 years earlier).

“We don’t believe they can provide the same level of service” with just two staff members, Fagan says.

The crux of this argument lies in the audit data CSB staff collected earlier this month. Fagan says Bacon Street staffers often provide more services than what is documented (the services they provide include more than just direct help for youth with substance abuse problems; they offer services to family, early intervention and education services as well, which sometimes staff don’t record), which the audit numbers didn’t take into account, he believes.

Also, the sample size was small, Fagan argues – the CSB staff looked at 10 records, out of 259 from 2009. Bacon Street folks even asked a professional auditor, who agreed that the sample should have been larger.
In an email to Fagan, Coe wrote, “Records were selected simply by randomly selecting cases (using case numbers only) with a mix of high and low levels of recorded services, with the intent being to spread the cases across the full fiscal year under review (to avoid any seasonal biases).”

Before the March audit, Fagan says the CSB had looked at other 2009 records to calculate services from that year, but they were unwilling to let Bacon Street give them more data once the plan to end the contract had been revealed.

Coe tells WYDaily that the CSB board directed him to look at areas to make up for the budget cuts – areas like contractual services. “We ran numbers that indicated the direct service areas at Bacon Street were low” and that “the CSB can provide the same number of hours of service” as Bacon Street with two staff members at a lower cost.

“Our intent is to try to make maximum use of public funds,” Coe says.

Fagan insists Coe and the CSB do not understand the scope of Bacon Street's services.

“I don’t know if they fully appreciated how we serve these kids, not just their substance abuse, but often many other disabilities,” Fagan says. Of the 120 children in treatment at Bacon Street as of early March, 86 of them have multiple diagnoses like ADHD, depressive disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome, among others.

“We have a long history of effectively intervening,” Fagan continues. “We know these kids don’t come to services willingly ... and we work to engage the families, which is one of the most difficult parts. Without the advance work with outreach and engagement, many children won’t make it through the door.”

If Bacon Street loses its CSB contract, they may very well get less (or nothing) from other big funders like the United Way and the Williamsburg Community Health Foundation, which could mean Bacon Street would be no more.

With a reduced program, Fagan says “we’re very concerned that many of these kids won’t get help … then they’ll present for services in crisis,” getting services at a hospital emergency room or finding themselves in the criminal justice system, which would mean an added burden to the community.

Coe argues that the CSB doesn’t want Bacon Street to close; the CSB service would be an alternative to Bacon Street. In the mental health field, there are multiple providers, and “for kids, there are very few providers [in the Triangle],” Coe says. “We can provide a choice. Having consumer options is great.” Also, the CSB offers a broader range of services, which might work well for some families, versus just a focus on substance abuse.

“If we weren’t convinced this was the right way to go forward, we wouldn’t do it,” Coe says. “We’re suffering a major loss of revenue, and difficult choices have to be made.”