NY non-profit that provides services to people with disabilities warns of pending cuts

From The Times-Union:

The Center for Disability Services, an Albany, N.Y., non-profit and one of the largest private employers in the Capital Region, is warning its employees that stark cuts to services and employment are looming.

The agency on Nov. 6 told its workers that budget cuts proposed by Gov. David Paterson “puts the Center’s system of care in peril.”

“We can’t endure more loss of funds and still provide basic services,” Alan Krafchin, the center’s president, said in a letter distributed to employees.

The center is based in Albany and has an annual budget of more than $100 million. Nearly all of that money comes from government sources, supplemented by private donations and a commercial mailing business the center runs.

Krafchin says Paterson’s proposed $65 million cut to the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities will reduce funding to the center by about $2.5 million.

Earlier this year, the Center for Disability Services shuttered day care and pre-school classroom, resulting in about 50 job losses.

The Center for Disability Services has 2,400 employees and calls itself the seventh-largest private employer in the Capital Region. It provides services to 15,000 people at 85 locations in nine upstate counties.

It is far larger than most Capital Region non-profits. But its financial concerns mirror those faced by most charitable organizations, both locally and nationally, in a down economy.