Suffolk social services loses only 21 jobs

Suffolk County Social Service administrators and community advocates expressed relief this week when more than 100 social worker positions were dropped from the county's layoff list.

Social Services Commissioner Gregory Blass said the department had lobbied to save the jobs by arguing that they were funded by state and federal grants.

The department, which Blass said serves about 400,000 clients, also made the case that its 1,600 workers must meet state and federal deadlines for processing aid applications.

"We lack the option of putting some work aside for a while until conditions improve," Blass said.

A layoff list proposed by former County Executive Steve Levy last year had called for elimination of 147 social services positions. When the county legislature passed a final list of 315 total layoffs on Tuesday, the department lost only 21 positions.

That gave the agency the distinction of having the largest number of jobs restored. The layoffs overall are expected to save the county $35 million through 2013, said County Executive Steve Bellone.

Bellone's spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter said funding the positions enables the department "to provide mandated services and fulfill its core mission."

Blass said preserving the positions enables Suffolk to comply with a 2008 federal lawsuit settlement that found the department failed to meet the federal 30-day deadline to process food stamp applications.

The Empire Justice Center and the National Law Center, the nonprofit groups that had filed the lawsuit, said in February that Suffolk still was missing deadlines, and asked a federal court to appoint a special master to administer the county's food stamp and Medicaid applications. A hearing on the special master issue is scheduled for May 7. The weak economy has fueled a growing load of aid applications, Blass said. The number of residents receiving food stamps grew by 4,400 in the past year while Medicaid rolls increased by 8,500 cases during that period, according to department figures.

Gwen O'Shea, executive director of the Long Island Health and Welfare Council, an umbrella group for nonprofit social service providers in Nassau and Suffolk counties, said she and others are concerned about losing more public-sector social service positions. Last year, 106 Nassau social workers received pink slips as the county sought to plug its budget deficit, though half the positions were eventually restored.

"Whenever there is a fiscal emergency, unfortunately the group on the chopping block is the one that is the most vulnerable," O'Shea said.

For food stamp recipient Joseph Lejman, 44, of East Islip, the prospect of fewer layoffs at the department was welcome news.

Lejman said he waited more than an hour Tuesday for his number to be called at the department's Hauppauge office. "They could use more people, not less," he said.