Before the Auburn City Council cuts funding to 14 social service agencies, let’s be clear about two things:

First, the $43,250 in question represents 7/100ths of 1 percent of the city’s total school and municipal budget. In other words, it’s a microscopic sliver of the city’s total expenses.

Second, the city finds itself in this operating-budget bind partly because it has consciously chosen to take $1.7 million of tax revenue – about 3 percent of the city’s tax money – off the table to fund what it loosely calls “economic development.” In other words, the city has voluntarily channeled money from a variety of tax agreements to a special fund to help pay for things like a new city hall, hotel and parking garage downtown.

Monday, Auburn Mayor Norm Guay put the current budget challenge this way to city counselors: “I’m asking each councilor to consider what we are going to do about social program spending.”

The “what to do” clearly implies that the city can balance its budget by not spending $43,250 to help support social service organizations including SeniorsPlus, the YWCA, the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project and the Sexual Assault Crisis Center.

The Lewiston City Council also contributes to those agencies through Community Development Block Grants and recently approved funding for them in its 2004 budget. That’s not to say that these agencies have never been on the chopping block before.

Budgets are tight every year, and this agency funding seems under scrutiny every time administrators look for ways to save money.

Some Auburn councilors argue that the social agency funding is outside the mission of city government. What’s more, they say, some constituents may disagree with using their tax money to provide these services.

Both arguments are specious. The city “invests” in everything from parks to playgrounds to new city buildings. An “investment” in people, via these agencies, is just as legitimate a function of government as building a new sidewalk.

There are no controversial “hot-button” organizations on the city’s list, so we doubt many residents are offended by giving $3,500 a year to SeniorsPlus or $2,500 to the local Red Cross chapter.

But, even if some residents disagree, they could just as easily disagree about the way the city spends money salting roads, trimming trees or buying new textbooks for schools.

Our fear here is simple: Most of the social service agencies involved are already in the midst of a funding crisis. The new governor has sworn not to raise taxes, but his proposed budget levels large cuts on the social-service side of the state’s budget.

What’s more, contributions to many of these organizations have dried up as donors have watched their investment returns fall off the end of the Earth.

If Auburn cuts such funding this year, Lewiston will likely follow suit next year, and that would compound the current disaster.

We have supported the new city hall, the hotel development and the parking garage.

But we think the city should look elsewhere to find $43,250. This isn’t the right time to deal another blow to these beleaguered public service agencies.


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