Group says Albany Sending Message that Literacy Doesn't Matter

By Rachel Ward

Rochester, NY – Advocates for literacy programs for adults say they're "turning up the volume" about threatened cuts in the state budget. They held a press conference Thursday to voice their concerns.

Literacy New York executive director Kevin Smith says the cuts could amount to nearly a third of what the organization receives from the state - more than $2 million.

For an organization where 80 percent of the budget is already borne by a combination of community support and volunteer labor, Smith says it's a tough pill to swallow.

"These dollars that the state provides for our program are essential to our ability to recruit and train volunteers to become tutors, and they're essential to capacity and ability to generate the resource from the community. We're already doing more with less, we're already having sustained cuts, we cannot accept any additional cut in support."

Smith says if the funds don't come through, Literacy New York will have to curtail programs and serve fewer adults - and perhaps stop serving some parts of the state entirely.

Smith says the message that the cut sends to adult learners is that they don't matter.