Though Warren-Yazoo Mental Health will see its federal funding cut by $160,000 when the new fiscal year begins Friday, the agency’s directors said services should hold steady.

“We don’t anticipate cutting any services,” WYMH Chief Executive Officer Steve Roark said Wednesday. “Of course, every dollar is important, but we already had a very tight budget this year that we made work.”

The agency has about 3,500 clients and 200 employees split nearly evenly between Warren and Yazoo counties. Along with federal grant funds, the agency’s $12 million operating budget is supplemented by Medicaid and insurance reimbursements, client fees and contributions from both county boards of supervisors.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cut its social service block grant funding to the Mississippi Department of Mental Health by $3.3 million for fiscal year 2011. The agency serving Warren and Yazoo counties — one of 15 regional mental health centers in the state — absorbed $160,000 of the cut.

Roark said WYMH was not cut as severely as other mental health centers because it only serves two counties, while others serve as many as a dozen. In Warren County, the agency operates a group home on Wisconsin Avenue, where it also provides a variety of mental health and chemical dependency services to children and adults. A 17-unit apartment complex for adults with mental illnesses built last year about a half mile from its headquarters is nearly full and operating successfully, said WYMH Warren County Director Don Brown.

Social service block grant funding has been dwindling for the past three years, and Roark said he expects budget cuts to continue in the coming years.

“To be in administration in mental health you’ve got to be an economist, too, and try to predict what your funding will be like years in advance,” he said. “All indications are that revenues will continue to decrease, possibly all the way to 2015. So, we expect there’s going to be more challenges ahead.”