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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > BUDGET AXE COULD FALL ON SONOMA FAMILIES
Article published - May 26, 2009
Credit: PRESS DEMOCRAT
Budget axe could fall on programs for Sonoma County families
By GUY KOVNER & MARTIN ESPINOZA
Eliminating welfare cash grants to needy families, the biggest chunk of budget cuts proposed Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, would cost 7,800 Sonoma County adults and children about $1.87 million a month, officials said.
Doing away with the CalWorks program, which has assisted jobless and low-income families since 1996, would save the state’s deficit-battered budget $1.3 billion a year.
Also proposed for elimination is Healthy Families, a low-cost health insurance program that covers 12,333 children and teens in Sonoma County. The cut would save the state almost $248 million a year.
Those cuts were included with major prison spending reductions in a $5.6 billion package announced Tuesday. The burden falls most heavily on women and children, said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa.
“It’s throwing women and children off the lifeboat,” said Evans, chairwoman of the Assembly Budget Committee. “It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘women and children first.’”
Evans acknowledged that Schwarzenegger’s spending cuts — addressing a $21 billion general fund deficit — have hit all the areas subject to state budget control: education, health and human services, corrections and parks.
“Nothing has been spared from the chopping block,” she said.
An additional $3 billion in proposed cuts is expected from the governor by Friday. The state budget deficit, accelerating as tax revenues ebb, is now $24 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1, Evans said.
Families who lose CalWorks support, which averages $526 a month, will “fall into abject poverty,” said Jo Weber, Sonoma County Human Services Department director.
“I just can’t imagine living in a society that doesn’t care for innocent children, vulnerable adults and struggling families,” Weber said. “It’s not a place I want to be.”
In addition, she said the $22 million a year in CalWorks payments locally will “disappear from the economy.” Grants are “spent almost immediately,” she said, on clothing, rent and household staples.
H.D. Palmer, the governor’s spokesperson on budget matters, said the “precipitous decline” in state revenues due to the recession “forced us to put proposals on the table that would have been unthinkable a few months ago.”
Tuesday’s proposed cuts were intended to replace a $6 billion borrowing plan the governor proposed two weeks ago but scrapped because the Obama administration said no loan guarantees were available, Palmer said.
Evans said it appears the entire $24 billion deficit will be plugged without borrowing or new taxes. “The governor and the Republicans are saying we won’t talk taxes,” she said.
Still, Evans said that Sacramento Democrats intend to review potential revenue sources, such as a nickel-a-can soda tax, to see how much of the spending cuts could be offset.
“Californians need to know what that means,” Evans said.
Healthy Families, a low-cost health insurance program for children and teens, covers families who do not qualify for Medi-Cal. Partially funded by the federal government, the program covers nearly one million kids in California.
Kathie Powell, CEO of the Petaluma Health Center, said the elimination of Healthy Families would represent a loss of about $159,000 a year, or 2 percent of the health center’s revenue.
More importantly, she said, it would mean that about 583 patients who visit the Petaluma Health Center about three times a year would lose their coverage.
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