In Springs, budget cuts end after-school Homework Club

The first hard reality of East Hampton's dramatic budget cuts hit the small hamlet of Springs, with the end of the Homework Club, a popular after-school program that cost more than $3,700 per student each year.

Canceling the program comes after East Hampton borrowed $30 million to cover past debts and made plans to eliminate 34 town jobs.

About 50 parents and children carried signs and spoke at the town board meeting last week, urging officials to preserve the program that provided homework assistance and a safe place to stay after school.

"I have two children in the Homework Club . . . I work hard seven days a week," said Laura Orellana, who told the town board that without the club, her children would be left alone until she came home from work.

But town officials said a similar program, Project Most, can pick up the 18 to 20 students who attend the Homework Club on a typical day. East Hampton has no funding for the club for next year, Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said. Additionally, the town's human services director, Edna Steck, who spent half her time on Homework Club activities, retired.

The Homework Club was free while Project Most asks families to pay up to $40 a month based on their income. Several town board members said last week that the school district, not the town, should pay for any after-school program.

Wilkinson said the Homework Club was just one of many programs the town can no longer afford.

The next service cut in East Hampton will affect many more people. The town board, without debate, also voted last week to suspend leaf pickup for the rest of the year, a move that could potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars in a town that spends more per capita for services than most other New York towns, according to 2007 data, the most recent available from the state comptroller's office.

"The town of East Hampton is fifth in per-capita spending in New York State," Wilkinson said. It spends $5,436 per person, about twice as much as Riverhead, Southampton or Southold. Shelter Island, with a population about one-tenth the size of East Hampton, spends $4,964 per person.

Among larger towns, Hempstead spent $653 per capita, and Huntington $1,030, the most per capita of any western Suffolk town.