In the midst of a budget freeze, one important area of the county’s budget managed to hold on to some additional funding.

After discussing cutting about $270,000 of promised budget increases to the county’s three social service programs in the budget flatlining process Thursday night, the council decided to use hospital interest money to keep the proposed increases in place, as suggested by councilman Jeremy Rivas.

The decision to use hospital money will need to be facilitated by the county commissioners, but president John Evans said the council had the commissioners’ support.

“I’m very happy,” councilwoman Laura Blaney, who was visibly pained during the discussion of cutting off those increases, said. “These programs are really important to the quality of life in Porter County.”

The increases were necessary for the programs, which provide numerous forms of assistance to the disabled and elderly, to continue running at their current levels because of large cuts in state funding, Blaney said.

Some council members were concerned about picking only certain departments to receive increases this late in the process, the final budget must be submitted to the state by Nov. 1, while most were flatlined.

However, the use of hospital interest money, which grows at about $1 million per year, seemed like an appropriate way to help fund health and living programs such as Opportunity Enterprises, the Council on Aging and Family and Youth Services, council vice president Jim Biggs said.

The main portion of those services’ funding will still be in the general fund, only the increases have been covered by interest money.

The council heard an impassioned plea from Dennis Morgan, the director of Family and Youth Services for more than 30 years, before deciding to keep the increases.

Morgan said he understood the fiscal responsibility the council was exercising, he just didn’t want social services to be forgotten. He said in many places social services are the lowest priority, receiving whatever money is left-over, but Porter County has never been one of those places.

“One of the things that sets Porter County apart is the human services,” Morgan said to the council. “(The council) has always been supportive and we appreciate that, we just don’t want (the council) to lose sight of that. Don’t let us fall by the wayside.”

In order to free up the hospital interest money, the council had to reverse its previous decision to use $1 million of it for drainage. The council expects to replace that $1 million for drainage by using Major Moves money, council president Dan Whitten said.

Posted 10/28/2011