Budget Files complete!

The processing of the budget files is now complete!  The files of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are the largest series in the entire collection. The budget files themselves are over 500 linear feet after being processed (that’s over 5 football fields!).  The budget files consist of a variety of budgetary files such as annual agency files, Budget Department subject files, financial reports, agency financial reports, audited agency reports, Distribution Committee reports, functional committee reports, Greater New York Fund files, and Financial Experience of Affiliated Societies files.

Of significance to researchers is the completion of the annual agency files.  This means that agency files from 1917-2000 are now available to researchers, spanning 84 years and 9 decades.  The files cover the entire Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (FJP) lifespan, plus 13 years of UJA-Federation (UJF) files after the merger, from 1986 to 2000. This sub-subseries is the largest of any in the collection. The files comprise 293.5 linear feet (294 bankers boxes and over 8,000 folders).  The processing of the agency budget files is the culmination of more than a year’s work of arduous processing by a single archivist. The FJP Annual Agency Budget Files finding aid is now available online (http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1944047) and the files are available for research.

This sub-subseries will be indispensable to researchers seeking information about a particular agency that Federation funded in a particular year or across many years.  In addition to the expected budgetary details, the files give a snapshot of the scope of Federation’s work in any given year or decade.  Without even looking at the files themselves, the folder lists are evocative of the time they represent just in the names of the agencies (Brightside Day Nursery – Auxiliary Guild, 1917; Recreation Rooms and Settlement, 1918; Hebrew Orphan Asylum – Ladies’ Sewing Society, 1919).  Because Federation provided funding where the need was greatest, it is possible to see the evolution of social services in the boroughs of New York City as more funding was provided by the government and as the City as a whole became wealthier.  Initially saving a poor population from starvation with funds for Passover food, and by supporting hospitals, care of the elderly and of orphans, Federation grew to support a more middle-class Jewish community that had spread out to Long Island and Westchester with summer camps, community centers and Jewish education, while continuing to support formerly Jewish hospitals in neighborhoods that remained poor.

We will continue to post more about our progress on the project as more series and subseries are completed.

UJA-Federation Budget Binders

Binders were in considerable use by the Office of Management and Budget in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.  Binders made it easy for the Budget Department staff to file and organize material in a quick and easy fashion.  Examples of materials kept in the binders include letters of allotment, grants awarded to UJA-Federation agencies, grants awarded by the Distribution Committee, reserves, chronological correspondence, transfers of capital campaign funds, manuals, and transportation study reports.  Some of the binders contain little material and take minimal time to process and transfer to acid-free folders, while the majority of binders are the 5-inch D-ring type full of paper and therefore take more time to process.  By organizing the binders in chronological order, we have identified some gaps in the material.  We are removing these binders in order to reduce the amount of space this material takes up, and the physical rehousing will be better over the long-term for the documents themselves. The folders are also much lighter in weight than these huge 5” binders.  Of the various kinds of files removed from the binders, it may be the chronological correspondence collected by Budget Director Steven Rosenbloom that will be of most interest to researchers, because they touch on such a multitude of topics in the Subject Files.

Pictured below is a huge binder, full of reserves from 1988 to 1989.

The Reality of Jewish Poverty in New York

One of the major issues that UJA-Federation is faced with to this day is Jewish poverty.  Jewish poverty has been a concern to Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (FJP) and UJA-Federation (UJF) throughout its long history.  One agency in particular that FJP funded and UJA-Federation continues to fund that deals primarily with the issue of Jewish poverty is the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty (later the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty).  The files of this agency can be found in the annual agency budget files of FJP as well as UJF, starting in the 1978-1979 fiscal year as a subvention and later becoming a part of the Community Relations/Development files in the 1980s.  The files continue through the 1990s.  Files pertaining to Jewish poverty can also be found in the Budget Department Subject Files, in the Sanford Solender-William Kahn Subject Files, and in the Stephen Solender Subject Files.

In 1972, it was estimated that the number of impoverished Jews stood at approximately 300,000 people, most likely as a result of the 1971 Jewish population survey.  This statistic helped prompt the establishment of the Metropolitan Council in 1972 and its mission was “to combat poverty in Jewish neighborhoods through community-based offices on a city-wide basis.”  The agency’s mission was carried out in a two-fold manner.  First, social services agencies provided information and referral and crisis oriented services and second through community development programs which served to combat crime, improve housing and generate community policy in targeted areas.

In the UJF subgroup, during the 1990-1991 fiscal year, the Metropolitan Council provided services for the elderly, homeless and Jewish poor of New York in conjunction with 21 UJF-funded locally based Jewish Community Councils.  The Jewish Community Councils assisted the poor in their communities in obtaining essential services from government and private agencies such as Medicare, Medicaid, Public Assistance, SSI, Food Stamps, housing, employment, legal services, transportation and escort services, clothing and furniture.  The Met Council administered these programs in conjunction with the New York City Departments for the Aging, Human Resources Administration and the Community Development Agency, as well as UJA-Federation.

The Met Council also provided various neighborhood preservation services.  Crime prevention, housing issues and community policy were addressed in coalition groups with local synagogues, government offices and civic groups.  Funding for neighborhood preservation efforts came from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development of New York City and the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal.

Currently, Met Council works in conjunction with 25 locally based JCCs. The release of UJA-Federation of New York’s 2011 population study published in consultation with Met Council, “The Jewish Community Study”, is published on the Met Council website (accessible here).  On their website, it is stated that currently “the Met Council serves over 100,000 clients on site and throughout our network of Jewish Community Councils in each of the City’s five boroughs. From affordable housing, capacity building initiatives, career services, crisis intervention, and family violence services, to health insurance enrollment assistance, home care programs, home services, immigrant services, and kosher food distribution, Met Council continues to be the voice of New York’s poor and working poor.”

In the UJA-Federation of New York’s 2011 Executive Summary of this survey (http://www.ujafedny.org/get/196901/download), it was mentioned that today “nearly 1 in 5 Jewish households is poor today, with incomes under 150% of the federal poverty guideline, and the proportion of poor Jewish households is higher than it was 10 years ago.  The relative increase has been especially dramatic in the suburbs, where 10 years ago there was very little Jewish poverty.  In the eight-county area, 130,000 Jewish households are poor.  In terms of individuals, 361,000 people (both Jews and non-Jews) live in poor Jewish households.  About 19% of all Jewish households are poor, as are 20% of all people in Jewish households — a considerable increase since 2002, when 15% of people in Jewish households in the New York area lived in poverty.  Jewish poverty has increased considerably in the suburbs, but it is still greatest in New York City, where 24% of Jewish households and 27% of all people in Jewish households are poor (compared with 20% of all people in New York City Jewish households living in poverty in 2002).  An additional 1 in 10 Jewish households is “near poor” — households with incomes between 150% and 250% of the federal poverty guideline.  Beyond the people living in poor Jewish households, an additional 204,000 people can be classified as near poor.  Thus, 565,000 people living in Jewish households in New York are affected by poverty.”

In an email newsletter (“The Reality of Jewish Poverty in New York”) dispensed by John Ruskay, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, nearly two weeks ago and accessible here, he mentioned that Jewish poverty is a painful reality in the New York community.  He cited the above statistics and talked about the magnitude of the numbers and why it is so difficult to comprehend.   In order to highlight the magnitude of poverty, Ruskay provided several examples such as the Masbia restaurant-style soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens run by the Met Council on Jewish Poverty and Project ORE operated by the Educational Alliance in Lower Manhattan.  He went on to mention how hundreds of people wait for hours on line for a package of groceries provided by the Met Council.  Finally, he stated that we must be a caring community and that no agency or philanthropy will eradicate Jewish poverty, but only through our eyes and hearts that we can make things better.

Budget Files Progress

As we are inching our way through the Budget Department files, we are pleased to announce the completion of two major subsubseries. The first, FJP (Federation of Jewish Philanthropies) Annual Agency Budget Files (our internal category M-1), is composed of 188 bankers boxes (nearly 2 football fields in length if laid end to end) and encompasses all the agencies that Federation funded from 1917 to 1986. The second subsubseries, FJP Reports of the Budget Department to the Distribution Committee, spans the years 1938 to 1982 and is comprised of 38 bankers boxes. We are also processing subject files of the Budget Department, which will become its own subsubseries; currently this subsubseries is about 35 bankers boxes in size. We also will have subsubseries for budget files pertaining to the Distribution Committee, the Functional Committee, and the Greater New York Fund, as well as 4 bankers boxes of FJP financial reports that summarize without the detail of the subsubseries above the financial information approved each year by the Board of Trustees.

The UJF M-1 subsubseries, which are the annual agency budget files after the merger of UJA and Federation (FJP) in 1986, is currently being processed. The files currently being processed from our most recent shipment are from Budget Director Steven Rosenbloom, spanning the years 1986 to 1994, and is composed of 56 bankers boxes prior to processing. The UJF files are being arranged according to the following schema:

I. Care of Aged and Infirm
II. Medical Care
III. FCVR /Human Services
IV. Jewish Education and Culture
V. Community Center Activities
VI. Community Relations/Development
VII. Camps
VIII. Subventions
Special Grants and Other Allocations
Inclusions
Designated Organizations

In the 1983-1984 fiscal year, Family, Children’s, Vocational and Rehabilitation (FCVR) Services became known as Human Services. In the 1984-1985 fiscal year, the Community Relations functional group split into Community Relations and Community Development. The Jewish Community Council (JCC) agencies became part of Community Development. In the 1985-1986 fiscal year, these two groups became part of the collective heading of Community Development.

Each year of the Rosenbloom files contains office copies which may contain duplicates of previously processed M-1 files from a different staff member’s office, as well as additional material not previously found and these folders are marked with “Supplement”. In some cases, these office files fill in missing gaps of agencies that were not previously encountered in the first shipment of UJF boxes. It appears that FJP as well as UJF maintained a system of these office files in colored folders where each color represented a functional group; for example blue folders were used for Community Centers, yellow folders indicated Designated Organizations, etc. One of the constraints of processing a large collection using our minimal processing workflow is that once boxes are completed they are sent off-site for storage, and it will not be possible to check folder by folder for duplicates. So as not to lose unique documents, we risk maintaining some duplicates.

The image depicted below is a summary of grants for the Federation Joint Services of the Lower East Side. This type of chart appears in every folder of every agency that Federation funded from the late 1970s through 1986.

Federation Joint Services of the Lower East Side, 1988-1989 Budget

Processing of FJP “M-2” Community Centers files

We are currently processing the FJP “M-2” category Budget files.  These files contain reports from the Budget Department to the Distribution Committee and are snapshots of how a particular agency was funded in any given fiscal year.  A complete set of one agency’s files will typically start at 1940 (1940-41 fiscal year) and end at 1982 (1981-1982 fiscal year), a complete run without gaps in years.

The reports in this subseries are being arranged by functional group, then alphabetically by agency, and then chronologically for each agency.  A report typically consists of a Budget Memorandum from the Budget Department to the Distribution Committee as well as completed budgetary forms and supporting schedules.  The report is often accompanied with minutes of the agency budget meetings from that particular year, inter-office memoranda, correspondence and other budgetary material.

The Community Center Activities functional group consisting of approximately 13 linear feet of material (representing about 33% of the FJP M-2 files) were unpacked and organized in alphabetical order.  Then each pile was organized in chronological order.  The files were then rehoused into acid-free Hollinger boxes which are currently being processed.  Pictured below are photos of our reorganization of these files prior to rehousing:

 

 

 

Functional Groups

As the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies evolved throughout the 20^th century, there were significant changes in Federation’s functional groups throughout the decades.  As stated in a previous blog, a functional group is a group of agencies that served similar functions within the community.  Names of functional groups were typically derived from the subcommittee divisions of the Distribution Committee. For example, the Child Care subcommittee of the Distribution Committee had an associated functional group, Child Care, in the Budget Department’s annual agency files.  Over the course of the 20^th century, groups changed and agencies moved from group to group, as Federation determined how the budget should be split amongst the groups.

In the first four years of FJP from 1917 to 1920, eight definite categories were defined by the budget department for Federation’s funding, plus additional categories listed (unnumbered) after the outline numbered ones.

I.          Child Care

II.        Delinquency

III.       Education of Handicapped

IV.       Care of Aged

V.        Medical Care

VI.       Medical Social Service

VII.     Relief

VIII.    Vacation Activities

Employment

Jewish Community Service

Settlement/Education

Technical Education

Starting in 1921, the budget files were categorized into eleven main categories with an optional twelfth category, Subventions, depending on whether any agencies were subvented in the year (see below). A subvention was given to an agency that was not an official agency of Federation but nonetheless received financial support from the FJP. Please see the outline of budget files that started in 1921 below:

I.     Child Care

II.     Correctional Work with Delinquents

III.     Education and Recreation of Handicapped

IV.     Care of Aged and Infirm

V.     Medical Care

VI.     Medical Social Service

VII.     Relief of Sick & Needy

VIII.     Religious Education

IX.     Vocational Education

X.     Community Center Activities

XI.     Fresh Air Activities

[optional XII. Subventions]

By 1939, Medical Care (formerly Subgroup V) and Medical Social Service (formerly Subgroup VI) shown above were lumped together as one functional group (Subgroup V) and in 1945-1946 was renamed simply as Medical Care.  Also in 1945-1946, Delinquency, Handicapped, Relief and Vocational Education all merged under the heading Family Welfare & Vocational Services (Subgroup IV below).

In the 1945-1946 fiscal year, a new functional group scheme was adopted, consisting of eight series as follows:

I.     Child Care

II.     Care of Aged & Infirm

III.     Medical Care

IV.     Family Welfare & Vocational Services

V.     Religious Education

VI.     Community Centers

VII.     Fresh Air Work

VIII.     Subventions

Besides these categories, FJP had another category called “Other Allotments,” for other expenses incurred by FJP.

Several more changes happened to the overall functional group scheme during the 1950s and 1970s.  In the 1952-1953 fiscal year, Fresh Air Work became simply known as Camps.  In the 1970-1971 fiscal year, the functional group, Religious Education became known as Jewish Education.  In 1973-1974 fiscal year, the Family Welfare & Vocational Services group changed its name to become the Family, Children, Vocational and Rehabilitation (FCVR) Services, which reflected the name change of the Subcommittee of the Distribution Committee in 1972.

As Federation evolved, several agencies started out as one functional group and eventually became part of another functional group. Several examples are as follows.  Blythedale Home started out as a Child Care agency and then became a Medical Care agency in 1945-1946 fiscal year reflecting the fact that its services had become more medical in nature; the name of the agency eventually changed to the Blythedale Children’s Hospital in the 1964-1965 fiscal year.  The Jewish Board of Guardians (JBG) started out as a Delinquency agency and became a Child Care agency in the 1945-1946 fiscal year.  Initially Child Care agencies for many years, First Hebrew Day Nursery and Louise Wise Services became agencies of the FCVR category in 1974-1975.

Special grants were grants given by Federation to organizations that were not fully funded by Federation or were not considered a subvention.  In 1976, there was a subcommittee of the Distribution Committee called “Subventions, Special Grants, and Membership” and FJP started awarding these special grants to organizations in the late 1970s.  We are hoping to learn more about the “Special Grants and Other Allocations” agencies once these become processed.

In processing the Budget Materials – Annual Agency Files (our team’s administrative category M-1), each folder for a particular agency has the functional group written on it accompanied by the name of the agency in order to facilitate a researcher’s use of the collection.  In addition, we have retained agency numbers whenever possible.  For instance, the agency Surprise Lake Camp would appear on the folder as VII. Camps – Surprise Lake Camp (106) and in the EAD finding aid as well with the same string as the title.  In addition, in each box to distinguish between functional groups, we have used dividers to differentiate between the functional groups and when there are two fiscal years within a box, we have used a divider to separate the years.

So far, the logical groupings in FJP utilizing functional groups are the Budget Materials – Annual Agency Files (category M-1), reports to the Budget Department to the Distribution Committee (category M-2), and the audited agency reports.  We hope that the processing work we are undertaking will enhance the research potential of these rich files.

Effect of World War II on Federation and its agencies

The budget files of FJP’s social service agencies from the late 1940s are being processed. From the contents of the budget files up to this point, it is evident that World War II had an impact on Federation as well as the agencies that it funded. The war had an impact in all areas of funding, especially the child care agencies and medical care agencies.  Agencies were more cautious in their spending during those hard times.  In general following the war, budgetary requirements from agencies increased considerably and agencies began to ask for more funds from Federation. Furthermore the war had an effect on the United Jewish Appeal that had just been formed in 1938. Below are several documents culled from the Budget Files that demonstrate the impact of World War II.

In the minutes of the 1943-44 budget hearing of the Jewish Board of Guardians (JBG) depicted below, it was stated that the impact of the war created additional difficulties for the society and that there was a spike in juvenile delinquency. In addition, JBG promised in future memoranda to indicate projects that should be ceased following the war.

Jewish Board of Guardians Minutes,  1943-44

page 2 of Minutes

The following 1948 letter from Ira Younker to I. Edwin Goldwasser (FJP Executive Director, 1917-1920, Chairman of Distribution Committee, and Vice President in 1948) mentions that should there be an economic downturn that Federation would be in a position to supply money for economic relief as well as sustenance.

Correspondence from Ira Younker to I. Edwin Goldwasser, April 13, 1948

Finally, this memorandum from Jerome Saltz (FJP Budget Director, 1941-1971) to the Distribution Committee indicates the budget as well as budgetary recommendations for Community Centers and Fresh Air Work agencies separate from the Special Allowances for Wartime costs.

Memorandum from Jerome Saltz to the Distribution Committee, May 21, 1948

page 2 of Memorandum

Writing about writing

While rehousing the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (FJP) budget materials of annual agency files (circa 90 document boxes) under control by Miriam Gross, budget examiner, I was drawn by the beautiful lettering on a 1923 folder.  I was impressed by the exquisite text on the folders which was not present on any of the FJP budget file folders processed before.  The calligraphy was first used in 1922, perhaps to commemorate the start of funding of the Jewish Board of Guardians (JBG), an important agency to the FJP. The JBG (formerly the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society) dealt with delinquency in Jewish youth and the rehabilitation of criminals, and was also affiliated with other smaller and related institutions pertaining to delinquency such as the Cedar Knolls School, Hawthorne School, and Lakeview Home.  The AJHS holds a small collection of JBG annual reports; please see the preliminary finding aid here for AJHS collection I-302:  http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=365583.  FJP sponsored 80-90 agencies each year in its nascent years.

The lettering was found throughout the 1923 folders as well as 1922 and these folders were retained during processing in order to preserve the beautiful text, because they were not found to be brittle (unlike the 1922 folders).  In 1924, the lettering on folders was written on faintly drawn lines that were used as a guide in order to make the text look legible.  In 1925, the folders revisited the same style of calligraphy used in 1922 and 1923, although sparingly and certainly not as exquisitely or appealing as the 1923 folders. Please see the images below for samples of the beautiful calligraphy found in the budget files of the early 1920s.

Various Annual Agency Budget Files, 1921

Various Annual Agency Budget Files, 1922

Various Annual Agency Budget Files, 1923

Various Annual Agency Budget Files, 1924

Various Annual Agency Budget Files, 1925

Jerome Saltz Budget Files (1917-1970)

We’ve now finished processing many of the financial files from 1917 through 1970.  A large group of these boxes were under the control of Jerome Saltz, in Federation’s finance department.  Saltz inherited Federation’s earliest budget files from his predecessors, which is why the dates of these files include many from before he was employed at Federation.  Below is information about these files, which will become part of the finding aid for the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (FJP) subgroup.

Jerome L. Saltz was the Budget Director for the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (FJP) during the 1940s through the end of the 1960s. He was also a department head of FJP’s Office of Management and Budget.

The records contain Saltz’s collected budget material from 1917 to 1920 (7 bankers boxes), 1939 (1 bankers box) and material from his tenure from 1954 to 1968 (46 bankers boxes). As a whole, these material belong to the FJP/Administration/Finance and Budget subseries.  The budget material received in our second shipment is from 1956 to 1968 (37 bankers boxes). The material was received in boxes that were very dirty and dusty, with crushed and missing lids, and most folders held the paper with Acco metallic 2-prong fasteners. Nearly all of the folders were in brittle or worn condition and so we then rehoused the contents within these folders in acid-free folders. Two boxes had become wet at some point in the distant past and were found to contain inactive mold.  The papers showing signs of this inactive mold were preservation-photocopied onto acid-free paper and the original paper was discarded.  As with all of the files we have processed to date, an Excel folder inventory was created.

The budget material mainly consists of annual agencies files. The files from 1954 to 1968 were arranged by budget year, using the scheme listed below, outlined with Roman numerals. This outline evolved over FJP’s existence, with this being the most recent version.  Included in parentheses are examples of agencies that belonged to the particular category.  In each folder, a budget worksheet contains the name of the category that the folder belongs to, which was helpful in processing this part of the collection. Furthermore, in our inventory and on the folder title itself, we retained the categories that each agency belonged to, as a convenient and logical way to group the dozens of agencies funded by FJP each year.

I. Child Care (i.e., Jewish Board of Guardians, Louise Wise Services)

II. Care of Aged (i.e., Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, Jewish Home and Hospital for Aged)

III. Medical Care (i.e., Blythedale Children’s Hospital, Hospital for Joint Diseases)

IV. Family Education & Vocational (i.e., Altro Health & Rehabilitation Services, Jewish Family Service)

V. Religious Education (i.e., Jewish Education Committee)

VI. Community Centers (i.e., Educational Alliance, Y.M. & Y.M.H.A. – 92^nd Street)

VII. Camps (i.e., Camp Rainbow, Surprise Lake Camp)

VIII. Subventions (i.e., Central Bureau for the Jewish Aged, New York Board of Rabbis)

Budgeting forced the agencies to develop a deep understanding of where and how their money was being spent.  The budget material is rich with financial information such as itemized yearly expenditures as well as correspondence that provides evidence as to how these agencies operated during a particular fiscal year.  The correspondence includes letters between Jerome Saltz and budget committee chairs of the particular agencies as well as occasional correspondence between Maurice Hexter (FJP Executive Vice-President) and the Executive Directors of these agencies.

Series VIII is composed of agencies who received “subventions” rather than regular Federation “allocations”. A subvention was given to an agency that was not an official agency of Federation, but which nonetheless received financial support from Federation.  In these files, the first folder in the subventions category contains correspondence with numerous agencies in the New York City area (i.e., National Council of Jewish Women – Brooklyn Section, Community Council of Greater New York), for which the surviving record is minimal.  The major agencies that were subvented by the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies had their own folders and include the Association of Jewish Sponsored Camps, the Central Bureau for the Jewish Aged, the New York Board of Rabbis, the New York Jewish Child Care Council, and the Vocational Advisory Service. The subvention files will be of particular interest to researchers because they contain information about agencies other than the official Federation agencies.

Below is a photo of a box with brittle folders prior to being processed and following is a photo of a box after it has been processed.

Annual Agency Files, 1919

Annual Agency Files, 1917, after processing

And here’s a picture of the Acco binding clip that was used to hold the papers together in the folders:

Acco binding clip

The following image is a budget summary of the Y.M.-Y.W.H.A. of 92^nd Street from 1967 to 1968.

Budget worksheet for the YM-YWHA of 92nd St., 1967-1968

Also included in Jerome Saltz’s files from our second shipment are agency financial reports which constitute 5 bankers boxes and are different from those found in the agency budget files.  The majority of these files dates from 1961 to 1969 and is unaudited financial reports.

We look forward to telling you more about the budget files as more of the material are processed.