Plea for Nassau youth agency funding

State and local officials heard calls Friday from more than 200 youth service agency supporters who want more government funding and less partisan bickering over money for programs to help Nassau County youngsters.

"We have agencies whose doors have been permanently shut . . . children who cannot register for a summer program that has been defunded [and] parents who no longer can work because there is a waiting list to enroll in an after-school program," said Peter Levy, president of the Coalition of Nassau County Youth Service Agencies.

More than a dozen state and county elected officials or their representatives attended the annual breakfast for the coalition of youth agencies at the Nassau County Bar Association in Mineola.

Levy told them they had a job to do: "Whatever it takes to secure the permanent source of funding to keep . . . the programs that tens of thousands of our kids and their families need."

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has promised that up to $7 million from red-light camera revenue will be dedicated to youth services if the county's request to the State Legislature for another 50 camera sites is approved. Youth agencies support that proposal.

"But it should not be necessary" to add red-light cameras to earn more revenue, said Dorothy Jacobs, the head of the Long Island Crisis Center in Bellmore. She pointed to a 2009 county law, that says: "All funds collected pursuant to this local [red-light camera] law shall be utilized solely to pay for . . . the implementation and administration . . . of the program and to provide funding for contracts, approved by the Nassau County Legislature, between the Youth Board" and three other county agencies.

Brian Nevin, a spokesman for Mangano, later said: "The money has been used exactly that way, but there is not enough of it."

But Earlene Hooper (D-Hempstead), deputy speaker of the State Assembly, has said she would not support the red-light camera bill submitted for Nassau by Assemb. Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove) and Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) because it does not guarantee Mangano's promise. Without her support, it is unlikely the Assembly will approve the proposal.

Gemma de Leon, who said she was speaking on behalf of Keith Little, chairman of the county's Youth Board, said, "Eliminate partisan politics from the youth services arena -- youth cannot be the pawns in a political game."

About 40 agencies served more than 37,000 youngsters in 2009, according to the Nassau County Youth Board.