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Warned months ago of impending cuts in funding, local Jewish institutions have begun receiving their allocation letters from the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. For most, the news is not good.

“Yes, there’s a cut,” said David Waksberg, executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education. “It was not a secret there would be a shortfall, so we’ve been planning for this for a while.”

In the 2009-10 fiscal year, the BJE received more money ($1.3 million) than any other local agency from JCF, according to the federation’s 2009 annual report. This year, the BJE received a 30 percent cut in operating support funds, $400,000 less than last year.

“That’s real money,” Waksberg added. “Our board and staff have been working over the last six months to prepare for a [balanced] budget  and take into account [any cuts]. But our core mission is not affected. We’re able to weather this without loss of any programs that are core.”

The S.F.-based BJE provides support for Jewish preschools, day schools, teen programs and adult learning across much of the Bay Area.

One local Jewish day school, the Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy in San Francisco, learned it will receive 20 percent less from the federation. That, according to the school’s dean, Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, will prove “horrendous.”

“Obviously, it’s extremely painful,” he added. “Especially since we are the school that serves the Bay Area’s 50,000 Russian Jews.”

Last year, the Hebrew Academy received $297,151 in operating support and scholarships from federation. Now, the school will seek to make up the deficit by soliciting funds outside the Bay Area, most visibly via a website the school set up, TheJewishRevolution.com.

These budget cuts come in the wake of the federation’s annual campaign, which closed on June 30 at $19.4 million in unrestricted donations, $3.6 million short of the agency’s target and $5.2 million less than last year’s tally. Eighteen employees were laid off, with more than a dozen other positions eliminated as part of an in-house cutback.

Anticipating less in its annual campaign, the federation notified beneficiaries several months ago to brace for cuts, and to fill out their grant applications with requests for smaller amounts than last year.

One of those applications was submitted by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The festival’s director, Peter Stein, said his organization received around $27,000 in operating funds, a 35 percent cut from its 2009-10 allocation. With the cut, the federation grant now represents 1.4 percent of the film festival’s budget.

“We are very aware of how dire the financial situation is at the federation,” Stein said. “We’re saddened by it, but we get it. We are fortunate that the festival has a diverse set of revenue sources, such that reductions from one funder are not catastrophic. It means we will have to be smarter about how we run our operations in the coming year.”

The reduced grant to the festival pertains to operating funds. Stein has yet to learn whether certain special programs of the festival, such as teen and young adult outreach, will also be subject to cuts.

Thanks to the advance warning from the federation, Deborah Pinsky of Foster City’s Peninsula Jewish Community Center planned around her cut.

She was even pleasantly surprised.

“When we did our budget, [the federation] asked all agencies to cut by 30 percent. We found out they got a donor [to PJCC] and we ended up cutting instead by 15 percent.”

For the 2010-11 fiscal year, the PJCC will receive a federation grant of $357,000. Like Stein, Pinksy said she understands the federation’s financial predicament and lauded the federation for its transparency throughout the process.

“They were really proactive,” she said. “No surprises. They acted responsibly and did not all of a sudden pull the plug. I was at least able to budget in time and make cuts if I had to.”

With a $14 million budget at the PJCC, Pinksy said the federation cuts were not catastrophic. But they did add incentive for more revenue outreach, including the launch of a planned giving program. “We’re trying every which way, and pulling every bunny out of a hat,” she said. “No question we’re asking donors to step up.”

In Palo Alto, the new Oshman Family JCC also had braced for a cut in allocations from the federation. In this case, the cut was about 12 percent less than last year’s operating grant, far from a worst-case scenario. OFJCC Chief Development Officer Jon Kaplan said this means there will be no adverse impact on programming.

“The federation did a very good job last fall of letting [agencies] know we were all in for difficult times,” Kaplan said. “We’ve made commitments to the community, and there’s a lot of trust the community put in us to raise the money to build this campus.”

Some federation beneficiaries were spared the budget ax Jewish Vocational Service executive director Abby Snay said her agency will receive about $322,000 in operating funds for this fiscal year, unchanged from 2009-10.

“We got the same [warning] letter everyone got,” said Snay, who is grateful for steady federation support. “We’d been planning around a cut. It’s just a hard time. The economy is not recovering the way we would like.”

Anita Friedman, executive director of S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services, oversees an agency that cannot afford budget cuts, given the demand for social services these days. Friedman said the federation decided to freeze its grant from the annual campaign to JFCS at last year’s level of $410,000.

“We’re very aware that the federation is going through a major restructuring at this time,” she said. “There are at least 3,000 Jewish families in crisis we are helping now because of the continuing economic recession, and we are appreciative the federation recognizes this crisis.”

Despite the economic gloom, many federation beneficiaries understand the new fiscal realities and have strived to make the best of it.

As the year goes on, those beneficiaries will apply for additional program-specific grants, and in many cases, those applications will be approved.

Noted Waksberg, “As [federation CEO] Jennifer Gorovitz has said, [an annual campaign intake of] $19 million is a significant amount, and the federation is still supporting a lot of great work. I’m not going to trivialize a 30 percent cut. It’s deep and it’s felt. But this community has a great deal of human capital in terms of creativity and will, and a lot of financial resources.”

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