[1/10/03]Member agencies of the United Way of West Central Mississippi will have less money in 2003 even though the 2002 campaign raised more pledges than the year before.

The amounts are lower because of pledges not paid and because some donors designated their gifts to agencies not specifically part of the local campaign, officials said.

The annual combined charity campaign wraps up in November. The most recent effort raised $1,663,053, up more than $10,000 from 2002 disbursements.

“We are focusing on what a huge amount of money this is for a community this size,” said Jane Geary, marketing director.

But after meetings of the allocations committee and the executive committee since the November victory party, United Way President Barbara Tolliver and Geary said the amount the organization had to allocate to the agencies took a big hit. Instead of having the whole $1.66 million, less 16 percent deducted to cover the United Way’s administrative costs, there is less than $1 million left. The $952,826 compares to $1,042,782 distributed to the agencies in 2002. Both figures include both allocations and contributions designated to specific agencies by the donors.

“After … looking at the numbers and what is going out of the community, what our shrinkage figures have been we did come down to about $89,000 less to allocate than we had last year,” Geary said.

They explained that shrinkage is the difference in the amount people have pledged and what the United Way is actually able to collect.

Also, they said, participants in the Combined Federal Campaign are allowed to designate agencies other than the 24 local member agencies for their gifts. This year, $173,283 of what was donated to the CFC was specified by donors to be forwarded by United Way to various other charities. An additional $21,542 collected from Entergy Corp. employees was designated as going to agencies and United Ways outside of Vicksburg.

The amount going out of the community was somewhat offset by an amount designated by local donors for specific member agencies and local agencies that are not members of the United Way. For the 2003 budget year, that amounted to $213,845 compared to $188,686.

Another factor that worked against the total United Way had to distribute is a change in how the shrinkage is computed, at least where one group of participating companies is concerned. Instead of using the normal 8.5 percent shrinkage rate used for all other participating companies and organizations, United Way officials used a shrinkage of 39 percent for the employees of the four local casinos. They based that percentage on actual experience of uncollected pledges in the 2000 campaign.

Geary said the allocations and executive committees kept in mind what the cuts will do to the agencies. When faced with the choice of cutting the budget of one of two agencies, they tried to determine which one could best withstand the cut because of outside or other sources of income.

With an allocation $11,500 less than it received in 2002, the local Salvation Army was one of the agencies hardest hit by the lower amount the United Way had to allocate for 2003. Capt. John Shows, the local Salvation Army commander, said the reduction will hurt.

“We will have to cut back on some of our programs,” he said, pointing to the programs involving feeding the needy, helping out with prescription medications and housing as three of the programs to be curtailed.

Shows said they will likely have to limit the aid given to those most in need. For example, food aid will no longer go to people who receive other social aid.

Haven House Family Shelter Executive Director Lark Johnson said they will likely have to cut back and pointed to transportation costs as one area. She said the shelter sometimes has to transport a woman to a shelter in another community when housing her in the local shelter would cause a dangerous situation for other occupants.

Both member agency leaders said they hoped they might be able to make up some of the loss with outside donations when people become aware of the situation. Shows said he is considering doing more frequent mailings to potential donors to see if that will bring in additional funding.