Aid Agencies Plead for County Funds

Executives and clients of several social service organizations came before the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners at a public budget hearing on Thursday.

Faced with funding cuts that would result from the elimination of earmark grants in the county's proposed 2013 budget, representatives and clients of a number of Montgomery County social services organizations implored the county's board of commissioners Thursday morning to find a way to maintain the county's financial support for their operations. "You call this support an 'earmark.' We call it a lifeline," said Lilibet Coe, executive director of The Open Line, a Pennsburg-based agency that provides support services to low-income residents of the Upper Perkiomen area. Coe said the $27,800 that The Open Line stands to lose in 2013 was "a relatively small investment resulting in a very large impact." Harvey Strauss, co-executive director of…

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