Tri-Town, SCCA planning formal merger

A 16-year affiliation between Tri-Town Community Action and South County Community Action is expected to result in a merger as Tri County Community Action on Oct. 1, according to Joseph R. DeSantis, CEO for both nonprofits.
Tri-Town Community Action was established in 1964 and the South County nonprofit formed in 1967. In 2000, DeSantis told PBN Monday, the Tri-Town nonprofit had taken a one-year contract to run South County, which had had a $300,000 projected deficit, no fund balance and was getting ready to close. Over the years and with one-year and later five-year contract renewals, Tri-Town has continued to oversee South County, he said.
The formal merger is planned to make the resulting organization “more effective and efficient,” said DeSantis.
“We feel it’s appropriate to merge because we will better serve our clients,” he added. “One of the best things about this is it will avoid a lot of duplication of effort. We’ll have the same personnel and financial policies, combined boards. There will be no layoffs as a result of the merger. It just makes the agency stronger.”
The nonprofits have similar missions, helping individuals and families with an array of programming and services in education, including Head Start, employment and training, behavioral health, health care, senior services, energy assistance, and others.
The Tri-Town nonprofit chiefly covers Johnston, North Providence, Smithfield, North Smithfield, Burrillville, and Glocester, while the South County nonprofit mainly covers Charlestown, Exeter, Hopkinton, Narragansett, New Shoreham, North Kingstown, Richmond, South Kingstown, Westerly and West Greenwich.
The new name represents coverage the combined agency would have in Washington and Providence counties, as well some continuing coverage for certain grants with service areas in Kent County which includes towns like Warwick. That coverage will not extend to locations where other agencies are already in place, such as Providence, for example, which is served by the Community Action Partnership, a nonprofit that has no relation to Tri-Town, DeSantis said.
Personnel will be kept intact, with about 200 Tri-Town and 100 South County employees staying on. Budgets for each agency today are approximately $13.5 million and $7.5 million respectively, he said.
The decision to merge was made in late 2014, but had been put off because Tri-Town had hoped to avoid putting the Head Start program out to bid, but that has not been possible and that program – which Tri-Town will also bid for – goes out to bid in coming weeks, DeSantis said.

No posts to display