CA: Some Wins, Some Losses - Budget Passed and Signed, Gov. Line Item Vetoed Many Services

From the SCAN Foundation (10.14.10):

California’s 2010‐11 Enacted Budget

After 100 days in budget stalemate without a spending plan for the 2010‐11 fiscal year, California lawmakers adopted the state’s budget on October 8, 2010 – the latest in the state’s history. Later that same day, Governor Schwarzenegger signed the budget, but only after exercising his line‐item veto power to cut nearly $1 billion from the plan approved by the Legislature. The enacted budget attempts to close the state’s $19.3 billion deficit through a series of measures including expenditure reductions, assumed receipt of new federal funds, other actions to increase revenue, as well as one‐time loans, transfers, and funding shifts.

When Governor Schwarzenegger released his proposed budget in January 2010, it included significant cuts to health and human services programs that serve California’s seniors. In May, the Governor released the May Revision for the 2010-11 proposed budget that reflected updated estimates for state spending and revenue, and rescinded many of the proposals made in the January budget. The final budget passed by the Legislature rejected most of these proposals, but when the Governor signed the 2010‐11 budget, he instituted additional cuts using his line‐item veto power.

Programs Spared: 

Adult Day Health Care (ADHC)
ADHC is a community-based day care program that provides health, therapeutic, and social services to persons at-risk of nursing home placement.

Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP)
SSI/SSP is a federal/state income program that provides a monthly cash benefit to low-income aged, blind, disabled individuals or couples.

Cash Assistance Payment for Immigrants (CAPI)
CAPI is a state-funded program that provides the equivalent of SSI/SSP to aged, blind, and disabled legal non‐citizens who are ineligible for SSI/SSP due to their immigration status.

Programs/Services Cut:

In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS)
IHSS provides in-home personal care and domestic services to individuals who are blind, aged, or who have disabilities. These services include bowel and bladder care, bathing, grooming, paramedical services, housecleaning, meal preparation, laundry, grocery shopping, accompaniment to medical appointments, and protective supervision.

County Mental Health Services
California’s public mental health system offers an array of community and hospital‐based services including evaluation and assessment, rehabilitation and support, residential treatment, and case management to individuals with mental health needs.
The Governor used his line-item veto power to eliminate mental health services for special education students.

Community-Based Services Program (CBSP)
Administered by the Department of Aging, CBSP provides critical services that help seniors remain at home and avoid institutionalization.

>>> For a more detailed analysis of the Budget

Comments

[Magalita Te'o]

This is ridiculous!! The budget cuts in California is just getting out of hand. I'm already irritated with the many schools that have already been closed as part of this so-called budget cut. Then the cuts of music and athletic programs in schools.
Now other schools are overcrowded.Teachers as well as many other Californias are struggling to get a job, and students have to make sacrifices on putting the practices of their dreams with music on hold. NOW,there's a cut in the supportive and health services, which could be the ONLY help that most individuals with disabilities have!
There are so many other things that are not as important that could be cut, yet the decision to cut programs and services that are for the betterment of someone's health is just sad.
The surprising one, was the cut of mental health services for special education students and how the governor used the line-item veto power to cut this!

I'm not into politics nor do I know a lot with the whole budget cut system that is going on, but the results of it all is terrible.
Praying for a better tomorrow and a wise leader.

[Csaba S. Hutoczki]

I am stunned that a Governor, who himself is aging fast, would cut services that affect elderly as well as disabled persons and the possibility of their home care. I just cannot conceive there are no other, more reasonable venues to truncate spending. Perhaps the Governor and his staff did not spend time to visit enough facilities and or listen to those providing and receiving the very services they scratched to fully recognize the significance of such formal support systems.

I understand the desire to put forth desperate efforts to lessen the State deficit, but I suggest a much more careful examination to determine what programs will lose vital assets and basically their capacity to serve those who depend on them. It is hard to believe, final cuts of a late budget, which was signed the very same day, were adequately considered by the highest office of California to generate the most reasonable decisions. If they claim they indeed came up with the best possible scenario, I would have to question the values they based those choices on…