EVERETT — Jeanette McClellan’s acceptance letter was dropped into the mailbox near her Colby Avenue studio apartment in August.
With her 3-year-old diabetic daughter at her side, McClellan read that she would be matched with a counselor who would help her navigate the mire of public housing, community college applications and subsidized child care.
After years of roller-coaster living that sometimes left her with nowhere to lay her head but on the backseat of her car, the letter was everything McClellan, 43, hoped for. She called Project Self-Sufficiency, a Snohomish County program, immediately to get started.
A month later, McClellan learned the two-year program that promised to kick-start her dreams could be gone by the end of the year. Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon recommended this month in his proposed 2009-10 budget that the three county employees who act as counselors for Project Self-Sufficiency be either laid off or moved to other jobs.
Reardon’s recommendation was part of his plan to grapple with a nearly $10 million budget shortfall. Nearly 100 workers, spread across most county departments, will lose their jobs if the Snohomish County Council follows Reardon’s plan. Council chairman Dave Somers and the council already threw out Reardon’s proposal, saying the executive didn’t give elected leaders a chance to weigh in on the cuts.
The council is starting from scratch to create the two-year budget by the end of November, Somers said, but job cuts are still likely.
That means McClellan, who has been on her own against red tape for most of her life, could be thrown back into the mix just months after she found a way to get help.
“This program is so important to me as a single parent,” McClellan said.
When McClellan received her letter and met with her counselor, she said began to see herself as having a future.
“I wouldn’t have to be on the system,” she said. “I’d be back in the community.”
More than $400,000 in taxpayer dollars went toward Project Self-Sufficiency this year. About $52,000 of those funds went to clients for various services. The rest of the money was spent on operating costs and salaries for the three county workers running the program.
Project Self-Sufficiency is part of the county’s human services department, the office that will be among the hardest-hit if Reardon’s plan is implemented. About two dozen workers would be asked to leave or find other positions within the county before January. Three more people have been told they’ll lose their jobs as part of organizational changes.
Programs and services across the county are likely to feel a pinch. Permit applications for real estate development and other building projects have dropped so low that there isn’t enough work for many workers in the planning department. Early this year, 27 planning department workers were saved from being laid off when they were lent to the county’s public works department.
Under Reardon’s proposal, 52 planning department workers could lose their jobs. Reardon’s financial planners recommended that those jobs be cut because of the continued slowdown in the housing and building markets, said Roger Neumaier, the county’s chief financial official.
The county’s identity theft prevention program will end if the 10 positions Reardon suggested are eliminated, prosecuting attorney Janice Ellis said.
Two animal control officers could lose their jobs, leaving six people the tasks of rounding up strays and investigating abuse reports, Neumaier said. The county doubled the number of animal control officers from four to eight a few years back, he said.
The Evergreen State fairgrounds manager position could be eliminated. The fairground staff would be reorganized, but people who attend events there shouldn’t notice a difference, Neumaier said.
Classes on anger management and victim awareness, intended to try to rehabilitate criminals, also could be reduced, according to county officials.
County programs ebb and flow with changing times, Neumaier said. Some of the services the county may cut are provided through nonprofit groups and other organizations.
Project Self-Sufficiency, for example, was created in the early 1980s, when few local agencies offered counseling for people on the fringes of society, said Ken Stark, director of the county’s human services department.
Now, the 100 people who are currently enrolled in Project Self-Sufficiency can go elsewhere to find the same help, Stark said.
“(Human Services) essentially does a lot of case management and some coaching, but mostly they work with participants in getting hooked up to other services,” Stark said.
McClellan said she’ll move forward with her goals even if Project Self-Sufficiency shuts down. She knows the classes she hopes to take at Everett Community College, and a financial-planning book by Oprah-endorsed guru Suze Ormon is already on hold at the library. A landlord who has a house for rent is waiting for her to be accepted for Section 8 housing credits, she said.
“It has a bathtub, and my daughter is really looking forward to that,” McClellan said. “We only have a shower in our studio.”
If Project Self-Sufficiency ends, McClellan also fears she will lose a group of new friends — six other women in the program who have banded together in support of what they say has changed their lives.
They attended a public forum on the county budget this month. McClellan and some of her friends spoke in favor of the program and plan to do the same at another forum next month.
The forum was an eye-opener, McClellan said. It was her first time trying to persuade elected leaders, and she felt powerful, like her opinion can make a difference.
“It made me realize I want to be a voter,” she said. “Now, I’m registered.”
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
