Senior Crime Victims Rally Against Cuts : Finances: Agency says it was given no notice of the loss of funding.

Confronted with a $4-million shortfall in the amount of property tax revenues they had anticipated for fiscal 1993, Pasadena officials recently held painful hearings to determine how to pare their $300-million budget accordingly.

A procession of concerned speakers urged the council to spare various programs in jeopardy before the final cuts are made.

But representatives of a well-established Pasadena program for elderly crime victims said they never had a chance to make the case. As it happened, one of the senior citizens who volunteers for the Crime Resistance Involvement Council was watching the city’s cable television channel last week when she learned that the program’s $50,000 annual funding, provided through the Police Department, had been axed.

Shocked program administrators said they had no warning that the program was threatened.

“We’d been given no notification that this was happening--no opportunity to advocate for our program,” Susan Lichtman, director for the Center for Aging Resources, said at a news conference Tuesday.

Now, Lichtman said, center advocates plan to mount a letter-writing and lobbying campaign to persuade the City Council to restore funds for the program, which has provided counseling and other assistance to thousands of elderly crime victims for 16 years.

“These services are not offered by any other agency. Nada ,” program Director Tamara Anderson said.

However, Mayor Rick Cole said he believes that the center’s staff was “clearly on notice” that the city faced difficult budget cuts.

“They were notified by the Police Department that a thorough review of the city’s programs was under way,” Cole said. “Anyone who doesn’t know that times are tough in government is living under a rock.”

The recommendation to eliminate funding for the program was made by the Police Department and was approved by the City Council at its meeting earlier this month, Cole said.

“We had to make some tough choices,” he said.

Operating out of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Graduate School of Psychology, Crime Resistance Involvement Council provides support to senior citizens who are mugged, robbed, raped or victimized in other ways. The council staff is notified by police when a crime has occurred involving a senior citizen, and one of the 11 program volunteers--all senior citizens--contacts the victim.

“We reach them at a time when they are very disillusioned with everybody,” said Charles Kunzelman, 78, who has been a program volunteer for 13 years. “We talk to them with empathy about the problems they have as a result of their victimization.”

The victims are offered six free counseling sessions with a doctoral student from the Fuller program, and volunteers also offer to conduct a security check at the victim’s home. If security is found wanting, program volunteers install free locks and smoke alarms and offer other security tips.

“The biggest advantage is to have somebody call them at a time when they are at a very low ebb,” Kunzelman said. “They know that somebody is out there who is interested in them and their welfare.”

To its supporters, Crime Resistance Involvement Council is a cost-effective program that uses community resources to serve a large number of people. In the last year, the program assisted 480 seniors.

The program’s $50,000 budget, provided entirely by the Police Department for the last several years, is used to pay for staff salaries, administrative costs, maintenance and supplies such as locks, Lichtman said.

“It’s been recognized as a low-cost model for intervention,” she said.

In the wake of Tuesday’s news conference, Cole said the City Council has decided to discuss using $18,000 designated for another Fuller-based program to support the program.