CARE faces funding gap

Thanks to a perfect storm of funding losses, a local drug prevention program is struggling to find a way to maintain its level of service.

Flathead CARE, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs among local youths, is feeling the pinch of a tight economy and budget deficits in its support groups. Even grants the organization used to be able to count on have slowly dried up over the years.

Flathead CARE’s projected 2010-11 budget is $95,000, down from $108,000 — and down from $151,600 10 years ago.

“Every week we learn something different is being cut,” executive director Kari Gabriel said.

Past cuts already have forced Flathead CARE to cut positions and trim one of the two remaining staff members’ hours. Future cuts will affect how effective the organization can be in the community.

The organization tries to bring a drug-prevention message to its member schools at least once a year through Red Ribbon Week, program director Julie Cummins said. They also provide services for several local private schools, even though those schools don’t contribute financially to CARE.

Flathead CARE sends newsletters to parents and mails postcards to households around prom, graduation and Christmas break — times when students can face more temptation to use drugs and alcohol.

Those efforts have continued even as money has ebbed from Flathead CARE’s coffers, Cummins said.

“In all the time I’ve been here, 16 years, for all the losses we’ve had in funding, we’ve cut very few things that we’re doing with schools,” she said. “It’s hard to say no to people, even when you have no money.”

The money has ebbed over the last decade, ever since the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act restructured Title IV funds, Gabriel said.

Under the new law, Title IV money previously dedicated to prevention programs like Flathead CARE could be funneled into Title I programs and used to hire tutors. With pressure from the federal government to keep math and reading scores up, many local schools decided to hire tutors instead of putting money into CARE, which receives its Title IV money through a cooperative of local schools, the Safe and Drug Free School Consortium.

By 2003-04, the consortium’s membership had dropped from 16 to 11. This year, membership is down to seven districts: Cayuse Prairie, Creston, Fair-Mont-Egan, Helena Flats, Kalispell, Marion and West Glacier.

Next year, the money Flathead CARE received from those districts will disappear; the federal government is going to establish a new program to funnel drug prevention money to districts, Cummins said.

Instead of giving funds directly to districts, that money likely will be available in the form of competitive grants, she said. The goal is to bring accountability to prevention programs.

“Before there was just this money that came that you could pretty much do whatever you wanted to with it,” Cummins said.

Restructuring the funding mechanism will mean a loss of about $7,000 from Kalispell Public Schools alone.

“The funding we’ve passed on to Flathead CARE has been eliminated at the federal level. If we don’t get it, we can’t pass it on,” district clerk Todd Watkins said.

The loss might seem minimal, even in a $95,000 budget, but that $7,000 paid for the entire STAND (Students Taking Action Not Drugs) program — Flathead CARE’s outreach program in Kalispell Middle School and Flathead and Glacier high schools.

Money from the Kalispell district paid for supplies for weekly meetings for both the middle school and the high school group, Gabriel said. About 60 students are involved in STAND, and their meetings require items like markers, games and food.

“By the time you pencil it all out, it doesn’t pay for itself,” Gabriel said.

The Kalispell district will continue to provide office space, phone and fax lines and computer services in the Linderman Education Center in 2010-11, she said.

In the recession, other funding sources have been less predictable. United Way covers a significant portion of Flathead CARE’s budget, about $30,000 this year, Gabriel said.

But United Way relies on fundraising campaigns and donations to fund its member organizations. The local United Way office’s 2009 campaign brought in $750,000 to be spread out over 24 member organizations, executive director Sherry Stevens said.

“I think that over the last two years, United Way has had a very difficult time nationwide, not just here,” she said. “We’re hoping that our fall campaign of 2010 will be successful and we will be able to continue the funding.”

Another major contributor to Flathead CARE in past years has been the Flathead City-County Health Department. The department used to contribute $19,700 toward the Flathead CARE budget. In 2008-09, the amount was reduced to $12,000.

Next year, Gabriel said, it will be down to $6,000.

That money comes from a tobacco grant the health department receives from the state to provide youth-based services, health officer Joe Russell said.

Part of the reason the health department has withdrawn some funding from Flathead CARE is that the department has a responsibility to the entire county, he said.

“Flathead CARE is really Kalispell CARE. They are not part of all high schools in the valley,” Russell said. “We have an obligation [to the other high schools]. We’ve never funded them.”

Pulling money from Flathead CARE doesn’t mean Russell doesn’t support the organization, he added.

“It’s not an indictment on what they do,” he said. “I believe in CARE. I believe in the concept of everything it does.”

Other grants, totaling as much as $45,000 and $20,000, have dried up in recent years as federal and state organizations have redirected that money elsewhere. Another grant, the Drug Free Communities Grant, will go away at the end of 2010-11.

In past years, that grant gave Flathead CARE $14,000. This year the organization received $12,000, and the amount it will receive next year is still unknown.

Flathead CARE will have to find a new, stable source of funding when that grant is gone, Cummins said.

“We just have to keep at it,” she said. “If this goes away and we aren’t able to get funded somehow with something more secure ... we can’t do bake sales and hope to stay alive.”

Gabriel was hopeful the organization’s July 24 fundraiser, Glacier Rally in the Rockies, will help next year’s budget. Last year the car show raised about $3,500, she said.

“We’re hoping to do significantly more this year,” she said.

Flathead CARE is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, so any donations the organization receives are tax deductible.

“I guess what it comes down to is how important is prevention?” Gabriel asked. “And what happens if we go away?”

For additional information about Flathead CARE, call 751-3970 or visit www.flatheadcare.org.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.