BANGOR – At a time when Maine’s economy is looking bleak, those who serve the state’s neediest people are facing the largest federal budget cuts they have seen in 30 years.

Earlier this month, officials who run public housing projects throughout the state were notified that because of “inappropriate accounting” practices at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, subsidies to local housing authorities could be cut by 30 percent this year.

In Bar Harbor and Ellsworth, where dollar amounts are still being calculated, it means fewer services for the residents, the large majority of whom are elderly. In Bangor, the potential cut of $237,000 means a significant reduction in the maintenance of the approximately 600 low-income housing units in the city. In Portland, where cuts could reach as high as $750,000, it could mean the loss of community policing projects and after-school and summer recreation programs for the children who live there.

The state’s entire congressional delegation has responded, asking the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee to help find the money to fund the department’s $250 million “accounting error.”

The executive directors of the housing authorities in Bar Harbor and Ellsworth, Bangor, and Portland, who have more than 90 years of experience in the public housing arena combined, all agree that the blame for these cuts lies “solidly on the shoulders of HUD.”

According to statements released by HUD, the problem began in 1999 under the administration of President Clinton. That administration, HUD now claims, changed the department’s funding formula in part to redirect funding from large housing authorities to smaller ones. Because reporting and accounting systems were not adjusted for the change, HUD used 1999 data for subsequent funding, making it difficult to forecast future funding needs.

When a shortfall resulted in 2001, HUD officials took from the 2002 budget to cover that shortfall. When there was a shortfall in 2002, it took from the 2003 budget. Now it’s 2003, and housing authority directors are being asked to bear the brunt of HUD’s fiscal mismanagement, according to Elsie Coffey, who has served as the executive director for Bangor’s Housing Authority for 35 years.

Ironically, though HUD officials have admitted that it was a mistake to take money from future budgets to fund current budget shortfalls, Donna White, a spokesman for HUD in Washington, said the department now hopes to receive permission from Congress to do it again.

“The difference this time is that we plan to ask the permission of Congress to do it,” she said. “That wasn’t done in the past.”

With congressional approval, White said it is possible HUD could fund local housing authorities by up to 90 percent – only a 10 percent cut.

Local housing authority directors are not at all hopeful congressional permission will be given and meanwhile are juggling budgets and expenses, unsure of how or if they will be funded.

“It’s sort of like a shell game,” said Terrance Kelley, executive director of the Mount Desert Island Housing Authority, which provides services to those in Ellsworth, Tremont, Southwest Harbor, Bar Harbor and Mount Desert.

To say that Coffey is frustrated and angry would be an understatement.

“We will continue to provide housing, heat and lights for the people who live here,” said Coffey, whose agency serves 1,400 people in Bangor. “We must provide those things and we do have some money in reserve to ensure that we can do that. What will happen is the maintenance of these units will be sacrificed to some degree. The worst-case scenario would be that we may have to lay people off.”

With only 32 employees to serve Bangor’s 600 units, layoffs would create more problems, she said.

In Bar Harbor and Portland, however, the situation is graver.

Kelley said the first thing his agency would have to cut would be services to the tenants who occupy the area’s 300 housing units. The average age of Mount Desert Island and Ellsworth Housing Authority tenants is 80.

Because the MDI housing authority works on a different fiscal year cycle, it could face more severe cuts, he said.

The Bar Harbor authority provides services such as light homemaking help, one meal a day and transportation for its tenants.

“If the saying is that you rob Peter to pay Paul, then those services that we provide to those tenants is Peter,” said Kelley. “It would be the first to go.”

Kelley said the authority uses six employees to provide those services, and that because of them many tenants were able to remain living independently. Facing such cuts, some tenants would be forced to move in with family members or move into nursing homes.

“What we provide and the way we provide it allows residents to live here for five years for what it would cost them to live in a nursing home for one month. It’s a sad situation that makes no economic sense,” said Kelley.

Peter Howe, who has been the executive director in Portland for 30 years, says he has seen cuts of 10 percent, but never even close to the 30 percent cuts that local housing authorities are now being asked to swallow.

“We do have programs to cut here,” he said. “But they are cuts that will set us back 15 years, when public housing areas were a big problem. In that time, these programs have enabled us to make public housing here a model program. It’s very discouraging.”

He accused HUD of now touting rhetoric and trying to backpedal on the 30 percent figure because of intense media pressure nationwide.

“First they say 30 percent, then maybe 10 or 12 percent. And the only way it’s going to be reduced to 10 or 12 percent is if they take from next year’s budget, which is what got us into this situation in the first place,” he said. “I’m not hopeful. I think the stars are aligned in a negative way.”

The Portland Housing Authority provides housing and services to about 6,000 people, or 10 percent of the Portland population.

The city has issued a proclamation asking that Congress provide HUD with the $250 million it needs to cover the discrepancy. Maine’s congressional delegation is asking the same. HUD, however, has so far refused to make that request, saying that it will only ask Congress for permission to take the money from the 2004 budget.

“HUD has decided that that is the route that it’s going to take,” said White, HUD’s spokesman.

Meanwhile, housing authority directors are trying to encourage people to contact members of Congress to support their local housing authorities. They also are spending long days looking at budgets and expenditures trying to figure out what they will be able to pay and what they won’t.

“It’s like trying to run your own household when you’ve just learned that your income has been reduced by 30 percent,” said Howe. “The first things to go are the ‘quote’ nonessentials. In our case, those nonessentials are the very things that make a difference and that help break the cycle for those who need public housing. It’s truly like pedaling the bicycle backwards while trying to move forward.”