Board Staffs May Have To Skimp on Basic Office Operating Expenses
By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — There’s good and bad news for Community Board 10’s office operations. First, the good: the board is moving soon to a more central neighborhood location in the middle of Fifth Avenue’s busy commercial strip, at 8119 Fifth Ave., between two popular Bay Ridge pubs.
Now, the bad: Faced with a proposed $10,000 budget cut, the board’s staff will have to skimp on office operating expenses. Neighboring Community Board 7, which covers Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, is feeling the pinch and fears it, too, as are boards across Brooklyn and the city.
The $10,000 cut represents a 5 percent cutback in the boards’ annual budget of around $190,000, the amount given to each of the city’s 59 community boards. Boards 7 and 10’s problems are typical of most boards.
Board 10’s office will open as possible budget restraints loom, with the proposed $10,000 cut for operations for Fiscal Year 2009 for all boards announced in February by the city’s Office of Management and Budget, she said.
Cutback in Office Supplies
“This is a significant, difficult cut for us. We depend on these funds for our basic office supplies,” said District Manager Josephine Beckmann. The cut would force a cutback on buying stamps, running out copies of documents, and effect the way the office communicates with the public. “The cut will make it difficult to function in an effective way.”
District Manager Jeremy Laufer of Board 7 said the same about what his office faces. “We cannot function if our budget is cut,” he said, emphasizing that it cuts into the board’s basic operating expenses. The cut may affect Board 7’s ability to effectively communicate with the public, he added.
Board 7’s office is located in a historic, block-long former courthouse on Fourth Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets, which also houses NYPD offices.
“I spoke with Dean Rasinya about the budget,” Beckmann said, referring to Board 10’s chair. “We won’t be able to hire a part-timer. We’ll have to remain at our current staff level.” The board office has two salaried full-timers, her and Assistant District Manager Carolyn Deluca, and one part-time employee.
Beckmann had requested additional funds in the new budget, which would help restore cuts made a few years ago, she told the board. “We’re disappointed, of course,” she said. The board office, she added, may be less hard-hit than most other boards because it decided not to hire another part-timer after it lost one.
While board staffers are salaried, the 50 board members and its officers serve as volunteers, appointed by local city council members and the borough president. Office personnel are hired by the board, which uses its own search committee as the need rises.
Old Board Office a New Youth Center?
Board 10 is advocating for the use of its current and soon to be vacant office at 621 86th St., near one of the exits for the Gowanus Expressway, as its “youth-community center,” the board’s number-two top item on its budget priority list. She told the board that she spoke with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. “We discussed that there’s a need in the community for a youth facility.”
The department informed Beckmann that the proposal would be considered if a non-for-profit sponsor and host agency could work together on such a proposal. Councilman Vincent Gentile, she said, has two or three youth organizations interested in the site, and had a contractor look at the property to determine how it could be converted into a youth center.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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