Suffolk County officials held a hearing on the potential impact of proposed cuts to human services programs in the 2018 federal budget.
The federal budget proposal would cut about $2.9 trillion to human services programs, including to 13 Suffolk agencies.
Richard Koubek, chair of the Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature, says the county cannot afford these cuts.
“And frankly, the formula has been very consistent for years and years. The federal government flat funds or cuts funding for human services. The state, then, flat funds or cuts programs for human services. And Suffolk County has to make up the difference.”
Koubek says Suffolk’s human services agencies will try to figure out how much funding they will lose and how many residents will lose access to food stamps, child care subsidies and Medicaid if the federal budget passes. He says the county would have to figure out how much more it will need to spend in order to offset the federal cuts.