By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Councilors made good on part of last summer’s budget cuts Tuesday night, giving out much smaller grants to area social service agencies.

Councilors approved a drastically smaller budget for area social services as part of the fiscal year 2004-05 budget last summer. That’s city money set aside for beneficial programs, such as the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project and SeniorsPlus.

Requests for that budget came in at $63,653 last summer. That was too steep for councilors, however. They allocated $28,900 for the budget but never said how it would be divided among the groups.

City Councilors Bethel Shields and Belinda Gerry met with city staff in January to find a way to distribute the money fairly. Tuesday night, councilors voted unanimously to adopt their suggestions.

“It worked out fairly well, because I don’t believe we should be putting any money in social service groups,” said Shields. “(Gerry) thinks we should, so we kind of balanced each other out. It’s a good example of democracy in action.”

The two started with a list of 17 agencies requesting money, but ended up funding nine groups. No group received everything it requested. Androscoggin County Head Start received the biggest grant from the city, $13,150. It had requested $17,325.

In all, councilors approved grants for Head Start, the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project, the American Red Cross, St. Francis Fellowship House, St. Martin de Porres Residence, the SEARCH Program, the Sexual Assault Crisis Center, Tri County Mental Health and SeniorsPlus.

“One thing we did was call the Police Department and asked them which agencies they used the most,” Shields said. “The ones they’d never heard of were the ones we cut.”

Representatives from two of the agencies that were cut asked councilors to reconsider.

“I think we have a modest request,” said Laurie Winsor, development director of Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice. She was seeking $500 for her group.

“I recognize the difficulty of what you have to do,” she said. “But what we do contributes to the quality of life here, too.”

Suzanne Benoit, executive director of the YWCA’s Intervention program, agreed. She had asked for $6,000 for her program, which counsels adolescents affected by crime.

“Looking at this list, it’s tough to ask for anything because I know that it would have to come out of some other group’s budget,” Benoit said.