The following may induce a sense of déjà vu.

King County has released its preliminary 2010 budget and, according to Lee Harper, director of the Northshore Senior Center, officials are once again proposing major cuts to human services.

Harper added under the current plan, the senior center on East Riverside Drive that serves Bothell, Kenmore and Woodinville would lose about $100,000 in revenue from a budget already hit by massive state funding cuts.

“In some ways, we knew it was coming,” Harper said.

In response, she and other center officials are once more urging all those concerned about or affected by county human services to get involved.

For starters, the center is providing free transportation to upcoming meetings of the King County Council on Oct. 22 and Oct. 29.

About a dozen or so representatives of the Northshore center were at a county council meeting in Bellevue on Oct. 7.

“If no one shows up, they are going to think that these programs aren’t needed,” Harper said.

Harper added center officials from around the area are urging the county to keep human service funding at its current level until a long-term revenue solution can be found.

Besides senior centers, other services in trouble, according to Harper, include emergency food banks, domestic-violence centers and homeless shelters, among numerous other programs. Many programs already have seen cuts of up to 50 percent in state and local funding, Harper added.

For the Northshore Center, its adult day health program is once more the main target of cuts.

The program provides medical care from staff nurses, physical rehabilitation, meals and activities, all meant to get senior citizens and disabled persons moving again and increasing the quality of their lives, said the program’s Judi Pirone when cuts were proposed earlier this year.

In the past, Pirone and others expressed concern for the health of many of those participating in adult day health if cuts became a reality. They also predicted a rise in the number of persons heading into nursing homes.

Adult day health advocates long have argued their programs are cheaper to the state than moving seniors into nursing homes.

Prior to cuts, at sites in Bothell and Kirkland, the Northshore program served approximately 260 persons ranging in age from 21 to 106.

The state funding cuts that arrived over the summer amounted to about $450,000. Harper said the center lost all transportation dollars for adult day health, was forced to drop patients and cut staff. Then the whole program got a bit of a reprieve due to a lawsuit aimed at forcing the state to fund adult day health.

Harper said Northshore joined the suit early on, watching as it was transformed into a class action. The judge in the case ruled the state had not properly notified adult day health clients of the termination of some programs or program slots because of budget cuts. Centers were allowed to take clients back into programs, but Harper noted many centers, including Northshore, already had cut staff and made other moves in response to changes in revenue.

Among the clients or patients who have returned to the program, Harper said program officials have noticed increased health problems. Although no one from the Northshore center was forced into a nursing home, Harper said other centers have reported some former adult day health patients had no choice but to go that route.

The judicial reprieve expires at the end of the year and Harper said no one is sure what happens then.

“It’s all kind of squishy right now,” she said.

For more information or to sign up for a ride to future King County Council meetings, send an e-mail to cherir@seniorservices.org or call (425) 487-2441.