No Free Ride

Nonprofit Worries Budget Cuts Will Leave Needy Stranded

By Ben Torter

The real estate market crash and resultant credit crisis on Wall Street and around the world has both individuals and governments watching their wallets and slashing budgets, and often it’s the little guy who suffers.

Take, for instance, Action Community Center, Inc., which provides free transportation to the elderly and disabled around Miami and Miami-Dade County.

At their Sept. 25 meeting, city of Miami commissioners voted to allocate $200,000 to the group from the mayor’s property initiative funds, with the possibility of giving another $100,000 sometime during the fiscal year — if it can be found.

“We were asking for a little bit more, like $390,000,” Action Community Center Office Clerk Beverly Tamayo told commissioners. “Before the cuts we had seven drivers. I only have three drivers now. I cannot serve the whole city of Miami with three drivers.”

Miami Commission Chairman Joe Sanchez contradicted Tamayo’s statement with some tough talk.

“My understanding was, through my briefing, it was $200,000, and the city would do everything it could within its power to try to come up with $300,000,” Sanchez said. “We understand that the county has reduced your funding, and that has been a burden. But the county has reduced its funding to a lot of agencies based on the situation that we’re faced with. Not only is the county reducing, we’re reducing. However, here, I think that we have gone out of our way to try to accommodate you, to try and come up with the $300,000.”

Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones asked city officials for clarification on just how much city money Action Community Center’s free ride program had received in the last fiscal budget.

Miami’s Assistant Transportation Coordinator and Project Manager Lilia Medina told Spence-Jones that the city had given the organization $319,000.

“In addition, the commissioners did proffer $40,000 out of your own budgets to accommodate a shortfall,” Medina said, bringing the total to $359,000.

Commissioner Tomas Regalado tried to assure Tamayo that her organization would be OK.

“One thing is for sure: The city will never allow Action to die,” Regalado said, adding that most of their elderly and handicapped clients are from Miami. “I think what the administration is proposing is the right thing for now, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to have to cancel the service.”

Tamayo didn’t appear confident.

“What do I tell my clients now, next month?” asked Tamayo. “I know that now, starting this fiscal year, we’re not going to have that money. We’re going to have to cut. I don’t know how. I have three drivers now. I’m going to have to do two. I really don’t know. In the office I only have two part-timers and two full. It’s like, the gas is killing us.” 

Still, Regalado insisted that things would work out.

“Cutting now would be a mistake,” Regalado said of the service that’s been around for 31 years. “Because every year, you know, either from the county or the city you get emergency help… I think you should leave here assured that the service is not going to end.”

The allocation passed by a vote of 4-0, with Commissioner Angel Gonzalez absent.

“We’re going through tough economic times, and through tough times we’ve got to make tough decisions,” Sanchez said.

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