By TRACEY DRURY
tdrury@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1609

Major state funding cuts have affected services at a Buffalo nonprofit organization, including layoffs of more than half of its staff.

Everywoman Opportunity Center on Oct. 21 shut down its Tonawanda site on Niagara Falls Boulevard while cutting hours in Niagara Falls and Dunkirk. Sites in Buffalo and Olean will remain open five days a week through support with community partners.

Myrna Young, executive director, says cuts from the state Department of Labor have virtually decimated the Displaced Homemaker Program. Funding dropped from $1.7 million in funding two years ago to $632,000 last year. In the new fiscal year, beginning Nov. 1, the agency will receive just $130,000.

"We've been hit by a tsunami of funding cuts like a lot of not-for-profits," she says. "We have lost over $1.5 million in two years."

Last year, the organization served more than 2,000 women, including those returning to the workforce or entering it for the first time. The agency provides career counseling, job training and placement assistance. A large contingent of its clients are refugee women who have never worked in this country before.

Young says all program participants who were served in Tonawanda are being shifted to the Buffalo site downtown or to the office in Niagara Falls where Everywoman shares space with other agencies at the United Way of Niagara Impact Center.

The agency has also cut its staff, going from 26 full-timers two years ago to eight by the end of this year. Young says the program will rely on volunteer counselors, including executives and retired professional women, to work with its professional career counselors and continue providing services. The new Game Savers program will train these working professionals on how to complete initial appointments, screening and training.

Despite the funding cuts from the state, the need remains, she says. Without any advertising or recruitment effort, the agency has seen the numbers of women coming in for services continue to climb: In the first six months of the current fiscal year, it had already seen as many women as it did when it was fully funded.

The agency will operate this year on a budget of about $730,000, including $200,000 from its reserve funding and revenue from a loan program - down from $1.5 million in fiscal 2009. Young and her board are continuing to explore other funding opportunities, including both government programs and foundation funding. It's also exploring the possibility of working with other nonprofit providers.

"The board has been meeting on every topic, exploring every possible option," she says. "From a philosophical point of view, we believe that services to women who are at or below poverty cannot afford to pay for programs they need to get out of poverty. It's everyone's responsibility to make sure that they and their children become full taxpaying citizens and have the support to do that."