From the Inside of the Hurricane!!

I think the full weight of the economic downturn is finally beginning to hit home here in Utah. Like vultures the issues of the down turn have been circling and swooping down here and there to pick off prey but I am beginning to hear rumbling of the end. Perhaps since I am employed at the State and not the private or private non-profit sectors we have been somewhat insulated—but I must admit with the reductions in funding my project has felt I am becoming more and more aware I definitely am in the cross hairs of the State reduction scope. This morning I heard from an executive director on whose board I sit indicate that one of the other private non-profits, a major player in the this State, with a multi-millon dollar payroll, Washington lobbyists, and an agency which probably does more good for people of low-income then any other project in the State, very well may be going under. It would be difficult for me to believe that a system as huge as this could collapse but, that is the talk—the vultures are swooping.
So, if an organization I have been writing about can fall prey to the economic wolves of the economy hen surly a small State agency such as mine can also feel the sting of death from the funding cut backs. The Executive Director even asked after my situation, almost like he was feeling me out to see how desperate my situation was/is, almost like he had something on his mind maybe a position—but that would be too good to be true. In the next breath he also indicated his organization was also feeling the financial impact of the economy and he was going to inform the board of directors, at today's meeting, that he was going to issue a hiring freeze and that he would be looking for board support. Hiring freeze, that sounds OK to me, at least he is keeping the folk he has and has them working. Many of the project the Board oversees are Federally funded and the Feds are cutting like drunk surgeons and sounds like subsidized housing projects are going to get knifed.
So as Dylon sang, “the times they are a changing” and it has taken a long time for the change to hit this
area as it looks like is about to happen. Like I have said, I am technically by grants through June 30—but after that who know what is going to happen to be. People are beginning to 'circle the wagons', pull in and hunker down ad when for these “winds of change” to pass...as they well and someday life will return to some sort of normalcy. As they always do. I kinda wish I could feel more stressed then I am feeling right now—perhaps as June 30 approaches my feelings will change but now I just watching like from the inside of the hurricane as all Hell is about to break loose.