Occupational Center worries about stretched state budgets

Eliot Caroom/New Jersey Local News Service. Cyndy Rintzler, vocational coordinator at the Occupational Center of Union County, tells worker Edipo DeSousa that he can start training to work a job in the community Tuesday. DeSousa worked for the ShopRite at the Occupational Center in Roselle for two years.

by Eliot Caroom/For The Star-Ledger
Tuesday April 07, 2009, 6:27 PM

The Occupational Center of Union County in Roselle celebrated its 50th anniversary Tuesday under the shadow of potentially devastating budget cuts. The center, which provides work opportunities to more than 350 disabled people, could lose up to 18 percent of its state funding, according to center President Mark Lasky.

At a party that celebrated the anniversary, state officials congratulated the center on its work and tried to reassure the staff.

“Gov. Corzine’s done everything he can to protect the most vulnerable folks out there,” said Kevin Martone, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Human Services. “You guys are doing crucial work at a crucial time.”

Not all of the center’s workers were comforted.

“What’s been said at the state level is the vulnerable people won’t be affected,” said Art Brand, vice president of professional services for the center. “But we have very vulnerable people.”

The center helps people with a range of mental, physical and developmental disabilities get jobs and keep them. It serves between 350 and 400 people.

Edipo DeSousa is one such person. DeSousa graduated from high school two years ago, but needed help training for a job, according to Cyndy Rintzler, the center’s vocational coordinator. He worked in a ShopRite that operates in the center’s facility and met the objectives required to work outside the center.

On Tuesday, as the center celebrated, DeSousa got word that he will soon get a job in the community, thanks to money from the state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. But that opportunity could be fleeting. The division’s funding will be reduced under Corzine’s new budget.

The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, part of the Department of Labor, funds 29 different workplaces for the disabled throughout the state. It allocates about $20 million in direct funds from the state.

“It may be as high as a 10 percent cut,” said Brian Fitzgibbons, the acting director of the division. “We love the people over at OCUC. It’s just that this is not our doing.”

The center normally gets about $1.5 million a year in funds from the division, along with between $1 million and $1.5 million of income from a workshop that does piecemeal packaging, labeling and shrink wrap work for manufacturers.

Even in good times, the center runs a deficit of about $300,000 a year and makes up for it through a capital fund, Walter said. Those funds have shrunk in the last year as well. The center conservatively invested less than 30 percent of its fund in stocks, but the fund’s value still dropped significantly with the stock market.

“You want to adhere to the mission of the center, but if you think about it, if you’re losing $600,000 a year, after a couple years you’re out of business,” Walter said.

The center is already at peak capacity. It started a waiting list last year and is offering partial shifts to workers in an effort to avoid furloughs. One reason for the overcrowding is the dedication of the disabled workers, who rarely retire.

“We have clients who are in their 70s who come to work every day,” said Walter. “They have nowhere else to go.”