RUMFORD – The future of the CareerCenters in Rumford and East Wilton is uncertain due to a 40 percent drop in funding.

Whether those centers will close is not known, said Bryant Hoffman, director of the Central Western Workforce Investment Board, which ensures that funding from the Workforce Development Act is distributed.

“We are looking at a number of options,” he said Thursday afternoon.

Fen Fowler, director of Western Maine Community Action, the service provider for the four centers that also are in Paris and Lewiston, said he believes something drastic will have to happen and will likely be known in March.

“Something major could happen. One option is to combine the two,” Fowler said of the Rumford and East Wilton offices.

State and federal funding for the centers, which provide services for employees and employers, has dropped because of grants made over the years to compensate for the spate of manufacturing losses in the area have expired.

Irv Faunce, program director for Western Maine Community Action, said funding has fallen about 40 percent. None of the 17 or so employees working at the four sites have lost their jobs so far. He said when the agency learned of the potential cuts in early autumn, employees agreed to reduce their weekly hours from 40 to 37. They also agreed to take accumulated vacation time and to take five unpaid furlough days between September and June.

Hoffman said the governor is focusing on trying to get all employment-related services under one roof in the various parts of the state, such as alternative education programs, community college classes and CareerCenter services. Many options are being explored, and community forums have been held on the matter.

“A last option would be closure,” he said.

Adam Fisher, spokesman for the Department of Labor, said there are 22 CareerCenters in Maine. “We want to continue to provide services in the Western Maine area,” he said.

Fowler said of the four CareerCenters under his agency, the Rumford and East Wilton sites have the highest burden of paying for space. Rumford must pay 100 percent of its rent and East Wilton must pay 58 percent. He said the East Wilton site is looking into filling some of the space in the 5-year-old building with tenants that fit with the goal of the CareerCenter.

Because of the Lewiston site’s much larger operation, and because it partners with another state agency, the possibility of closure is not an issue. Similar advantages are applicable to the Paris site, which shares its building with the college system.

Fowler takes issue with the reason for the reduction in funding. Money came in when manufacturing firms closed, but now with the number of lost jobs reduced, that money is no longer there.

“We view CareerCenters like libraries. There needs to be a place to go for employers and employees,” he said.

A community forum will be held in East Wilton on Jan. 8 when the future of that site is discussed.

Hoffman, who oversees CareerCenters in Somerset and Kennebec counties as well, said the next couple of months will be devoted to looking at job-related resources and how they are funded.

“Layoffs would be a last resort,” he said.

Marlene Gile, a career counselor at the Rumford site, said a local forum was held earlier in the month. She said several local legislators are trying to put a bill in that would freeze the funding cuts.

“I think we’re more needed here than in many other places,” she said.