State budget cuts services to families

Services for children and families took a big hit in California’s budget—despite activism by people who care about children. The state’s $23 billion shortfall was mostly closed with $16 billion in cuts. The governor also used the line-item veto to cut an additional $500 million (legislators are protesting these cuts). He called on First 5 to fill the gap—and First 5 promised to help with funding. The budget will:

CalWORKs (effective 2011)

• Limit adults to 48 months of cash assistance in any 60-month period
• Require “self-sufficiency reviews” for adults without enough welfare-to-work activity hours. Cash assistance would be cut in half if adults didn’t attend without good cause.
• Cut children’s grants up to 50% if adults do not meet work requirements
• Count the time during which an adult is sanctioned toward the 60-month lifetime limit.

Additional CalWORKs changes

• End COLAs for CalWORKs grants starting 2010-11
• Cut $375 million from county funding
• Exempt primary caregivers of young children from work requirements until July 2011
• Stop the 60-month time clock when an adult has been excused from participation until July 2011

Health

• Cut $323 million from Medi-Cal—plus $60 million from county funds
• Cut $174 million from Healthy Families. Healthy Families stopped enrolling children in July and will have to drop children without alternative funding. If this happens, Health Access predicts the number of uninsured California children would double.
• Cut $234 million from Department of Developmental Services programs, including regional centers for people with developmental disabilities ($100 million was cut in Feb and $50 million more was cut from young children’s services in line-item vetoes)
• Cut state funds for several community clinic programs and also Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health programs; eliminate state funds for the Immunization Program and the Black Infant Health Program.
• Create a plan to centralize (and likely privatize) eligibility and enrollment for Medi-Cal, food stamps, and CalWORKs.

Child care and development

• Eliminate the school-age community child care program (latchkey)
• Increase Community Care Licensing fees by 10%.
• Train former CalWORKs recipients as child care teachers ($4 million)
• Train license-exempt child care providers ($2.5 million)

Child welfare

• Cut some foster care provider rates by 10%
• Cut $80 million from child welfare services.

Schools

• Fund K-14 spending at the minimum Prop-98 level ($1.4 billion less for 2008-09 and $4.5 billion less for 2009-10 compared with Feb budget levels)—but eventually restore 2008-09 reductions
• Count $402 million from funds for districts with the lowest academic achievement levels toward Prop 98 funding
• Allow districts to reduce the school year by up to five days through 2012-13
• Allow districts to sell surplus property to pay for General Fund purposes through 2011.

Sources: California Budget Project, Child Care Law Center, Child Development Policy Institute, Health Access

Governor's budget: Deep cuts proposed for children's programs

Governor Releases 2009-10 Budget Proposals, from the California Budget Project, reports on the governor's proposed budget. The governor plans to close the predicted $39 billion budget shortfall (which includes last year's budget shortfall) by cutting spending ($17 billion), raising revenues ($14 billion), and borrowing ($10 billion). The governor proposes to:

Revenues

• Temporarily increase the sales tax by 1.5% and charge sales tax on some services, such as car repair, amusement parks, and sporting events
• Reduce the tax credit claimed for children and other dependents
• Impose a 9.9% oil severance tax
• Increase alcoholic beverage taxes by a nickel a drink

Changes to First 5 and Prop 63 funds (would require voter approval)

• Eliminate the First 5 California Commission and redirect state funds and 50% of county funds to children's programs under the Department of Social Services
• Divert Prop 63 mental health funds to reduce state's costs for mental health managed care

Health

• Eliminate Medi-Cal dental and other benefits for adults
• Restrict Medi-Cal eligibility for low-income adults with children, keeping an estimated 429,000 low-income parents off of Medi-Cal
• Reduce health services provided to some legal immigrants
• Restrict access to health care services for undocumented immigrants
• Eliminate the California Food Assistance Program, which provides food assistance for some legal immigrants who are not eligible for federal food stamps
• Cut funding for Regional Centers, which coordinate services for people with developmental disabilities

CalWORKs

• Suspend the July cost-of-living increase
• Cut CalWORKs grants by 10%
• Eliminate cash assistance
  --> for children in CalWORKs "safety net" program if their parents don't work enough hours.
  --> after 60 months for some children whose caregivers are ineligible for CalWORKs
  --> for some CalWORKs families if an adult fails to attend a "self-sufficiency review"

Early care and education

• Increase child care fees for families up to a maximum of 10% of their income
• Reduce reimbursement rates for providers in voucher-based programs
• Suspend the 2009-10 cost-of-living increase

Schools

• Reduce Prop 98 funds to the minimum required
• Reduce "revenue limit funding" for districts and county offices of education as well as funds for a number of educational programs
• Use some public transit funds to pay for transporting kids to and from school
• Eliminate cost-of-living increases for K-12 educational programs
• Allow districts to cut the school year by five days
• Eliminate the High Priority Schools Grant Program
• Suspend almost all education mandates

For more info

• Summary of cuts to schools, health, and human services from the California Budget Project
• More on child care from the Child Care Law Center
• More on health from Health Access (scroll down to Dec 31)
• More on poverty and CalWORKs from the California Partnership
• More on schools from Parents and Students for Great Schools
  

January-February Children's Advocate

Check out our January-February Children's Advocate issue -- now available and online in English, Spanish, and Chinese! This issue includes our annual multicultural calendar with dates for key 2009 multicultural holidays as well as anniversaries of significant events. In this issue:

• 2009 multicultural calendar (online only!)
• Grassroots Snapshot: Families win pesticide buffer zone
• Hot topics: LIFETIME helps parents get their CalWORKs benefits
• Early Care and Education: Learning through play: Ways children can bump into numbers
• Hot topics: Union? Family child care association? Family child care providers debate the benefits
• Raising kids: Parents talk with kids about their family's tough times
• Community resources: Resources for families going through tough times
• California Child Development CORPS: The CARES stipend is a strong motivator
• Parent Voices: "Now everything I do incorporates Parent Voices"

In English at http://www.4children.org/issues/2009/january_february
(for Spanish or Chinese, click on the link at the top of that page)

Questions to start 2007 with

1. Will the Democratic Congress stop the war and redirect at least some of the money to programs that children and families desperately need? One of the most urgent questions on my mind is: Will they stop cutting Section 8 and put in more money before housing costs push even more families into hunger and homelessness? The federal government has also been cutting job-training funds—while increasing the pressure on parents to get off welfare. Will they provide enough funds to enable parents to get the kinds of jobs that can support their families?

2. Will California really make health care available to all kids who live here? Advocates say yes, and according to the polling, Californians really support this, but the stumbling block is anti-immigrant ideology. If you want to help, see http://www.100percentcampaign.org/

3. Will the governor be able to provide high-quality, comprehensive health care to all Californians without raising taxes? (Hint: the answer to this one is: No. Even if he increases the number of Californians with “health insurance,” I’m sure you know that many health insurance policies leave people stranded a lot of the time—oh, we don’t cover that.)
Many people favor a requirement that employers pay for health insurance. But what happens when you change jobs or are unemployed for a while? And who’s going to guarantee that the health insurance they provide will cover the care you need?
The follow-up question is: Will advocates for children and families finally add their voices to the movement for a nonprofit, single-payer health care system that includes everyone, set up by the state? A nonpartisan think tank commissioned by the legislature found that such a system could provide high-quality, comprehensive care for everyone in the state for less money than we now spend on our inadequate non-system of health care.

4, What’s going to happen to the families on CalWORKs?!?!
* The state is under increased pressure from the feds to make them get jobs.
* The governor wants to deny them cost of living increases and take away the whole grant, not just the parent’s share, if the parent violates a CalWORKs rule.
* On the plus side, California has done a good job so far in protecting support services like job training and counseling.
More questions:
* As many CalWORKs parents struggle with homelessness, limited English skills, lack of job skills, domestic violence, depression, substance abuse, etc.— the reasons they went on welfare in the first place -- is increased pressure really what will enable them to support their families?
* If more parents are pushed to go to work, will the state increase the amount of child care available for their kids?

Stay tuned! And watch the Children's Advocate for updates on these and other issues. www.4children.org

CalWORKs changes: More pressure

More Trouble Department
The new federal welfare law, signed last February, will put a lot more pressure on states, and thus on low-income families, who already had plenty, thank you.
The new law forces states to get more of the people on welfare working. It also puts more restrictions on what you can count as “work” (for example, you can count a year’s worth of job training, but the new law specifies that this “training” can’t be part of a four-year college program).
If you’re interested in the technical details, the feds didn’t actually increase the “work participation” requirement: it’s still 50%. What they did was drastically decrease the credit that states get for reducing the number of families on welfare. The states were using this credit to make up for the fact that nowhere NEAR 50% of the families on welfare were working. In California it’s been around 23%.
(That’s because families on welfare have REASONS for not working. Some parents lack job skills. Some are homeless. Some can’t find child care or transportation. Many have mental health, domestic violence, or substance abuse problems. That’s why they’re on welfare. Duh.)
(If you want even more technical details about the federal changes and California’s response, see the summary by the Western Center on Law and Poverty at http://www.wclp.org/files/Welfare%20Watchers%207-21-06%20final.doc )
California has responded to this pressure in a good way, by trying to protect supportive programs for CalWORKs families and even providing more funds for programs such as job training, that will help parents meet work requirements. They’re also moving some families out of the federal welfare program so they won’t be under pressure to work if that’s not appropriate for them. They’ve added policies to help families avoid “sanctions” (penalties for not meeting CalWORKs requirements) and to end sanctions quickly.
But the federal law will still increase pressure and restrict options for CalWORKs and CalWORKs families.
Fortunately California also has some kick-ass organizations that are mobilizing to help CalWORKs parents learn about the new law and figure out how to deal with it, both on an individual and a policy level.
LIFETIME (Low-Income Families Empowerment Through Education) (http://www.geds-to-phds.org/) will be working with other organizations in the TANF Stakeholders Working Group to prevent any cuts in income to CalWORKs families. They’ll also continue to work on expanding educational opportunities for CalWORKs parents.
Meanwhile LIFETIME staffer Dianna Collier will be traveling around the state holding workshops for parents on CalWORKS about how they can deal with the new requirements and build toward financial success for their families. To schedule a workshop at your community college or organization, contact her at dcollier@geds-to-phds.org.
And look for the Children’s Advocate’s article on new issues in CalWORKs, coming up in our March issue.