The national Americorps program currently provides 260 volunteers for community service across New Hampshire.
Local Americorps officials learned recently they may have to eliminate three-quarters of those positions this fall.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Shannon Mullen has more.
This year's Americorps volunteer members will spend almost 300-thousand hours at work in New Hampshire. They support victims of sexual and domestic violence, teach environmental education in schools, and help kids catch up on reading.
At the Belknap Merrimack Community Action Center, three new volunteers for New Hampshire Reads took an oath of service last week.
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These volunteers will spend the summer working with children who are behind on their reading skills.
NH Reads Director Peg Downing says her program has reached 20,000 kids since 1997. But she couldn't have done it without Americorps volunteers.
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And that's what might happen in September. The national Americorp office has announced that state grants for next year's programs will be cut by 65 million dollars...or 27%.
It's not clear how many volunteer positions will eliminated but it's estimated the number could go as high as 54 thousand.
Tim Dupris is Director of Volunteer NH. He says worst cast scenario, his Americorp force could drop from 160 to 10. Aside from the effect on services, he's worried about the program's credibility with volunteers.
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These cuts are not due to federal budget defiicits.
In essence, Americorp is a victim of its own success.
Since Sept 11th, an unprecedented number of Americorps applicants has been clamoring for open slots.
And the bottleneck has created a backlog in the organization's books.
National Americorp Director Rosie Mauk says the result has formed a perfect storm that's been a long time coming.
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Americorp guarantees each volunteer an education award and writes those checks from a national trust.
They've been balancing the books using a formula that takes into account factors like dropout rate, and the number of volunteers who don't use the award within the allotted 7 years.
Congress wants Americorp to use more conservative math and says the organization's national trust should contain exactly enough money for the number of eligible volunteers.
Funding cuts will shrink that number, but in theory they'll only affect the coming year of service. Still, New Hampshire officials worry their programs won't recover.
Volunteer NH's Tim Dupris.
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President Bush last year proposed support for 75,000 Americorp volunteers by 2005.
But Americorp says penny-pinching will set their efforts back at least a year in trying to meet that goal.
For NHPR news, I'm Shannon Mullen.
