U.S. Sen. Bob Casey yesterday decried continuing cuts in federal funding for public housing across the country, which would receive $415 million less next year under President Bush's proposed budget.

In a news conference at the Allegheny County Courthouse, Mr. Casey, D-Pa., said the proposed budget would continue "a long line of cuts" that threatens the quality of life in public housing complexes and the communities around them. As a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Mr. Casey said he has sent a letter to the White House opposing the cuts.

"If these funding cuts continue, it's going to be disastrous," he said. "We're going to fight very hard for [funding for public housing]."

Frank Aggazio, executive director of the Allegheny County Housing Authority, said in recent years the agency's operating budget has dropped $7 million to $17 million a year. Capital funds have gone from $9 million to $5 million.

The cuts have reduced the authority's ability to make physical improvements in communities and caused it to eliminate after-school programs and cut police services, which had been contracted out to local police departments. That money for contract services -- which gave public housing special attention from local police departments -- has been eliminated and now is down to six of its own officers who are deployed to trouble spots.

Overall, the authority has laid off 115 employees.

The authority has about 11,000 residents living in 3,200 units in 42 communities.

A. Fulton Meachem Jr., executive director of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, is in the process of forming a group with public housing directors from across the country to advocate for more money for public housing. The Pittsburgh agency has lost less money than some others because it has been part of the federal Moving to Work Demonstration Program, which gives a few authorities across the country more flexibility over how they spend their money.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato noted the county's allotment of Community Development Block Grant money also has declined from $20 million to $16 million a year. Mr. Onorato said that money is used in low-income neighborhoods and was particularly helpful during the county's response to flooding in 2005, when it was used to set up a furnace replacement program, among other things.