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cent pay raises this year. But trying to loosen the squeeze by cutting personnel expenses has led to low morale and high turnover, according to Mrs. Gorman. There comes a point when practicality and fairness demand another means of budget balancing, she said.
But it may be that substandard salaries are the only alternative to drastic program cuts.
“The money coming in (from the federal government) is going to drop even more next year,” the executive director predicted. “So we have to do something. I think we must decide at what point we’re going to cirde our wagons and concentrate on J>e revenue producing services so ve can keep our doors open and lang on long enough for the pentulum to swing back the other way.”
Which programs will be rimmed? Which possibly eliminated entirely? From an examination of die Community Services Center offerings, there are no obvious choices.
Aging and support services
In the early 1970s, a survey of the planning district found hundreds of isolated elderly, especially in Rappahannock and Madison counties, who needed home-delivered meals. The funds were available to pay for this under the government’s Older Americans Act. A proposal was taken to the Boards of Supervisors in the five counties.
“No one objected to the federal ftinds but they didn’t want a separate human services agency set up; a home-delivered meals program had to be operated by an existing agency. There were only two other agencies then besides the Community Services Board serving all five counties. Germanna Community College and the Health Department didn’t want it so we took on the responsibility,” Mrs. Gorman recalled, adding that her agency is the only one of Virginia’s 40 community service boards to provide these programs for the elderly.
Community Services serves lunches at Trinity Church in Rappahannock and sites in the other four cotmties. The program offers more than nutritious meals; it relieves the social and femotional isolation all too common among older country folks. Congress expressly prohibited a means test for this program; it is open to all who are 60 or older. But those who can are asked to pay the full cost of the meal and others are requested to make whatever contribution they can afford.
92.2%