United Way Trims Funds for Charities : Economy: Annual campaign raises less than last year. Funding for agencies will drop by 12.5% in the first six months of 1993. Further cuts will follow.

San Diego County’s reeling economy claimed yet another victim Wednesday, with the United Way announcing $3.7 million in budget cuts and the charity’s board chairman calling the reductions to health and human-care agencies a matter “of crisis proportions.”

“Not since 1974 has our annual campaign raised less than the prior year,” Scott McClendon, the board chairman, said. “The economic recession and the many thousands of layoffs have taken a major toll on corporate and employee giving in the workplace.”

Projected revenues fell drastically short, because thousands of county employees who made pledges to contribute are out of work or soon will be, said spokeswoman Bobette Williamson. As a result, “we just don’t have the dollars,” she said.

To lessen the impact of the cuts, the United Way’s board of directors intends to distribute them over 2 1/2 years, McClendon said. The plan calls for a $1.5-million, or 12.5%, reduction in the annual funding of all county agencies receiving United Way money.

That will be taken in the first half of the current fiscal year, meaning January through June, 1993. An additional $1.2-million reduction will be imposed over the next two years (July, 1993, through June, 1995).

The cuts will be felt by all county agencies that receive United Way funding. They include the American Red Cross, which receives $1,087,950 a year, putting it at the top of the list. The YMCA of San Diego County receives $721,100; the YWCA, $477,400; the Salvation Army, $420,100, and the Boy Scouts, $408,000.

All such groups will be subject to the 15.53% reduction outlined by the board of directors, who announced that, “in keeping with United Way’s value of addressing diversity,” ethnically controlled agencies will receive only a 10.16% reduction.

Williamson said the United Way funds 79 agencies throughout the county and a number of groups that fall under the rubric of the Combined Health Agencies Drive (CHAD).

Williamson admitted the impact is likely to be great, with organizations whose programs range from helping the homeless to feeding and clothing the poor will fall under a cloud “until they decide what to cut from their own budgets.” In anticipation of the cuts, United Way will have reduced its 1992-93 operating budget by $892,212, or 18.1%, as compared to the prior year. McClendon, the board president, said a supplemental funding drive is “worthy of consideration” because of the impact on health and human-care agencies.

“This is, in effect, comparable to a disaster relief campaign after a major natural disaster,” McClendon said. “Only in this case, we are dealing with an economic and social disaster of unprecedented magnitude.”