U.S. Civil Rights Comm. shuts offices

Citing mounting debt and projected budget shortfalls, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission announced Friday it will close two of its six regional offices, lay off four staff members and request free rent on its office space for one month.

The office also will offer early retirement packages and require remaining staff to take short furloughs, said Kenneth L. Marcus, the commission's staff director.

"It's an extraordinarily difficult process," Marcus said. "We will continue providing civil rights services without pause."

The 48-year-old commission is charged with making recommendations to the government on issues concerning equal opportunity for racial and ethnic communities, people with disabilities and other minority groups. Once called the "conscience of the nation," it laid the groundwork for the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But the commission's $9 million budget has not changed in 10 years, and it expects to face a $265,000 budget deficit this fiscal year. There are currently 64 staff members, down from 93 in 1996.

Regional offices in Denver -- which oversees several states including North Dakota -- and Kansas City, Kan., will be closed by Oct. 31, Marcus said. The state-level civil rights work that is now coordinated in those offices will be folded into the remaining regional offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., he said.

Staff members will each be required to take four or five days off without pay, and commission officials will ask that the General Services Administration, which oversees its office space, give them one month of free rent.

With long-term underfunding and inadequate staffing, the problems were inevitable, said Ronald Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland who tracks civil rights issues.

"We've got some very serious issues on the table with respect to diversity including affirmative action in higher education and voting rights activities," Walters said. "They need all the resources they can get to enter vigorously into those debates. By cutting back, it's going to cripple their ability to do that."

Michael Yaki, a San Francisco attorney who was recently appointed to be one of eight commissioners, said he plans to lobby members of Congress to increase the commission's budget. "Even a modest amount of money would stave off the closures," he said.

The civil rights agency has faced mounting troubles for nearly a decade. In 1997, the Government Accountability Office called it "an agency in disarray," criticizing its poor financial tracking and spotty project management and strategic planning.

In the past year, some officials with the commission have been forced out and more conservative replacements have been brought in.

Amid the turmoil, the fact-finding work at the commission's core has slowed dramatically. Last July, a report was issued on possible bias against Korean residents in Baltimore -- six years after the local commission held a hearing on those issues. (AP)

Article copyright The Bay State Banner.