The future of the Salvation Army is in doubt after its government funding was slashed by $50,000.

Divisional commander Major Frank Pittman told The Royal Gazette that another cut meant the organisation would have to make some changes to how it was run.

“We have to evaluate where we are and seriously consider how we go forward,” Major Pittman said. “I’m not sure where this takes our future.

“Right now I’m spending more money than I’m bringing in — I can’t keep doing that. We have to make some changes in how we run.”

The Salvation Army is given two grants in the Budget: the first, a contribution from the Department of Financial Assistance towards its shelters, has been cut from $450,000 to $400,000.

A second grant of $100,000 from the Department of National Drug Control goes toward the rehabilitation and addiction programmes run by the Salvation Army. This was cut last year but later reinstated and the figure has remained the same this year.

“I’m very pleased that that is tucked in there,” Major Pittman said. “We would have had to cut some of our addiction programmes without the $100,000.

“What we must realise is that this is a government programme and we’ve been operating this programme on behalf of the Government,” he explained.

The Salvation Army has been helping to fund the programme for the past three to five years, but the charity was unable to meet its fundraising targets this year.

Major Pittman said the cuts meant he would now have to find another $50,000 this year on top of the $165,000 the Salvation Army already puts towards the programme.

“The Government just seems to be pulling away from it,” Major Pittman said. “We were seriously hoping that Government was going to put something in there [the Budget] for the new Bishop Spencer building.”

The Bermuda Government announced in 2014 that the building on The Glebe Road in Pembroke could become a new homeless shelter. It signed a six-month Memorandum of Understanding with the Salvation Army to examine the feasibility the project. The charity, however, needs funds to adapt the facility to residences.

Major Pittman said: “Charities seems to be struggling all over. There’s a lot of concern out there over the social needs of people and we just don’t seem to get it.”

Age Concern’s grant has also been reduced but only by $2,000 from $40,000 to $38,000.

Charles Jeffers, vice-chairman of Age Concern and chairman of the charity’s advocacy committee, said: “We’re not surprised because this has been a trend for a number of years.

“The irony is, organisations like Age Concern are providing the services that in effect one could say, should be provided by the Government to a large extent.

“Nevertheless, we will soldier on. We feel that the services we provide are very important to Bermuda.”

He added that because of the small cut, he did not see the charity making any changes to the services it provides.

“I don’t see the cut in the budget for us having any real adverse effect on what we do now. We could do much more if we had an increase.”

Mr Jeffers said Age Concern’s grant had been cut by about $2,000 every year for the past five years.

“We’ve had to do what we’ve had to do to survive. We have had to in recent years reduce staff, cut office space and we’ve become more reliant on volunteers. It’s been tough.”

But Mr Jeffers is hopeful about the statement in the Budget regarding a possible pension increase because it has been several years since the last one.

Mr Richards said he would “prudently consider increasing pensions and other benefits under the Contributory Pensions Act 1970 in August of this year, when benefits under the Act are uplifted”.

Mr Jeffers also noted that the allotment for health insurance had increased from $1,040,000 last year to $3,995,000.

“We are hoping a large portion of that will be used to supplement the health insurance premiums for seniors who are having difficulty paying premiums or have stopped paying them,” he said.