NYS & FCC–

Service And Counseling Agencies Weigh Merger

By John Voket

Two municipally funded organizations providing myriad support and counseling services to hundreds of Newtown residents may soon be merging. The board of Newtown Youth Services recently endorsed a plan to begin exploring a merger with the Family Counseling Center of Newtown, to form a single agency that would reduce administrative costs and service redundancies in favor of funding more programs.

Board members from the Family Counseling Center are scheduled to consider the idea early next week according to the center’s new Executive Director Beth Barton. The proposal, which was introduced by Ms Barton, was hailed as a positive move by both Newtown’s first selectman and the director of the recently expanded regional health district.

“I talked to the new executive director [Ms Barton] about it a few weeks ago,” said First Selectman Herb Rosenthal. “I think the idea was first considered some years ago, and it’s good that they’re looking into it. I know each agency has some different functions, but many are also overlapping.”

Mr Rosenthal said he believes the move, if accomplished, would benefit both the town and the organizations.

“I hope the [Family Counseling Center] board approves looking into it,” he said.

Health District Director Donna Culbert said she has seen the potential benefits of a merger first-hand, having just spent the last year helping to orchestrate the merger of Newtown’s Health District with the towns of Roxbury and Bridgewater. That move has brought additional funding to her office, has added a full-time sanitarian and bodes well for Ms Culbert’s goal of increasing public health outreach and education services.

“I can’t help but think it’s a very, very good idea — a win-win situation where the clients can potentially benefit most,” she said.

The health district director echoed Mr Rosenthal’s sentiments about trimming overhead in favor of enhancing service and program delivery.

“I don’t know it firsthand, but I understood that there have been some short-term staffing issues which merging might solve,” Ms Culbert concluded.

Newtown Youth Services Chairman Christopher Gardner said serious discussion on the possible merger was only introduced about three weeks ago during a meeting with Ms Barton.

“Beth and I had a discussion, and at first I wondered how it could work,” Mr Gardner told The Bee Tuesday. “But after another discussion, I started seeing common threads. It certainly bodes well for keeping overhead and administrative costs low, while devoting a greater amount of allocations to services. That is a very attractive in terms of providing better services to our children and youth.”

Mr Gardner was cautious, however, asserting that the proposal required the blessing of the Family Counseling Center’s board, and that the idea was still in the earliest conceptual phase. He pointed out the many challenges that would result if the decision was made to proceed, including rolling any local, state, and federal licensing into a newly merged entity, as well as effectively communicating the benefits to local funders and organizations like the United Way.

“The idea makes sense from the perspective that both agencies currently draw a significant amount of our donations from the same funders, and the same donor group,” he said. “And historically it’s interesting because both organizations share similar roots. Both organizations were founded through the Trinity Church.”

The NYS chairman said the merger proposal would not move forward without the blessing of the community as well.

“If things begin to come together conceptually, we hope to have a public forum to get input from Newtown residents,” Mr Gardner said. “It’s critical that we make this a community initiative.”

In the current municipal budget, the NYS received $160,000 in taxpayer funding. And although it is an independent nonprofit corporation, it is the official state sanctioned youth service bureau for the town. And while both agencies are similar in size, having approximate operating budgets of about $500,000, the town only budgets a $54,000 allocation to the FCC.

This may be in part because the FCC itself is sanctioned to tap health insurance providers to compensate for services rendered, a benefit that could enhance the NYS mission to expand its frontline counseling access. Currently FCC is licensed to provide outpatient mental health services for adults and children, and is seeking to bolster a staff member offering outpatient substance abuse counseling, by securing state licensing for the agency in that area of expertise as well.

Ms Barton said by securing the additional licensing, the FCC and/or a newly merged agency would be positioned to best address substance abuse issues and recovery programs communitywide, and especially among its youth who are increasingly at risk. By providing full licensing credentials as well as its certified staff, the FCC would be able to assist NYS in meeting service goals rapidly, and at greatly reduced costs to the youth bureau.

“While the expenses to maintain licensing are already fixed costs for us, we come to the table with a certified medical director, all our social workers are licensed, we’re already authorized to take third party [insurance] reimbursement for services and we have malpractice coverage,” Ms Barton said. “The startup costs to establish and run these types of medical programs could be extensive, and it’s hard to run a lot of medical programs without a lot of experience.”

Ms Barton said from the moment she began learning about Youth Services, she immediately became impressed by its network and outreach, which excels in addressing the needs of Newtown’s youth.

Laura Kurtz, the FCC board’s vice chairman, said the merger would be in the town’s best interests.

“Putting these two important agencies under the same roof would demonstrate the best use of taxpayer funds,” Ms Kurtz said. “Newtown is not a big [enough] place to permanently sustain the number of programs each individual agency needs to best serve its residents. Overall, our missions are the same, and both organizations independently tap into the same donor streams which makes it harder on everyone.”

Ms Kurtz said that the expense and resources NYS might have to expend seeking a new executive might also be alleviated in the event Ms Barton was considered to serve a newly merged agency.

“They are in the process of looking for a new exec, and we have a wonderful new director,” she said. “If the whole point is to achieve the most funding to provide the greatest level of services, it’s important individual agencies don’t tap out the same funders for the same purposes.”

Ms Kurtz also pointed out that the FCC is one of the smallest fully accredited organizations of its kind, which brings an added level of prestige and capability as NYS is aiming to ramp up addressing growing youth alcohol and substance abuse initiatives.

“The accreditation bodes well for attracting increased funding for new, expanded, and pilot programs in the event we become an expanded agency,” she said. “It will be tricky, but Beth and I feel it is the right time to combine forces.”

Mr Gardner agreed that it may be the right time for the two agencies to merge.

“It’s certainly a forward thinking and outside-the-box concept, but when you think of young people being the future of our community, as well of the families they come from, it makes sense,” he said. “We need to avoid worrying about the short-term discomforts and look 20 or 30 years down the road with this. The hard part initially is saying ‘yes,’ but it offers too many good possibilities…it’s the right thing to do.”