State Gets Budget In On Time
The state of California met its fiscal year budget deadline for the first time in six years as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the budget bill into law on Friday, June 30 – one day before the beginning of the new fiscal year. Legislators had approved the budget bill late Tuesday night, adopting a $131-billion state budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year that seeks to balance paying down state debt while also investing in health and human services, education and safety net programs.
While budget negotiations in the past few years have been heavy on political posturing and partisan politics, this year’s budget plan passed on a bipartisan vote in both the Assembly and Senate. An unanticipated $7.5 billion in additional state revenues also helped make budget negotiations this year far less rancorous, although final legislative approval hinged along party lines regarding proposals that aimed to expand health care coverage for all children. Those proposals were eventually dropped.
The ACLU of Southern California is part of a statewide coalition organized to oppose budget cuts to vital safety net programs such as SSI/SSP (assistance for low-income elderly and disabled people), CalWORKs (California’s welfare to work program for working families), and health and human services programs such as MediCal and Healthy Families.
Along with fair budget advocates, including the California Partnership, Western Center for Law and Poverty, the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, LIFETIME/Parent Voices, Children’s Defense Fund and the Service Employees International Union, the ACLU/SC joined efforts to train community members and activists about the budget process, participated in public rallies and events to highlight the need for a budget that reflects Californians’ values, directed thousands of letters and calls to key budget negotiators and participated in targeted legislative lobbying efforts.
The coalition worked to move public awareness of the concept that a state budget must reflect its residents’ values of fairness and urged the legislature to restore much needed funding to low-income families and for the blind, elderly and disabled - people who were forced to make extreme sacrifices in last year’s passed budget. Advocates also urged legislators to rescind the Governor’s proposed cuts to supportive services such as childcare for working families, and social safety net programs such as CAPI (assistance for low-income elderly and disabled immigrants), and to extend health care access to the 800,000 uninsured but eligible children in the state.
The final California 2006-07 budget includes:
-- Restoration of the federal SSI cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for seniors, the blind, and those with disabilities beginning in January, 2007, eliminating the three-month delay that was included in last year’s budget agreement,
-- $100 million in additional CalWORKs funds to respond to the recent reauthorization of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. Funds will be used to implement strategies for meeting increased participant work requirements, reduce family sanctions, increase job training and placement and reduce homelessness among CalWORKs families. The budget bill also modifies state law to eliminate durational sanctions and allows sanctioned families to come into compliance at any time.
-- No expansion of children’s health coverage, either for county programs or the statewide Healthy Families program. However, legislators indicate that they intend to revisit the issue in legislation such as SB 437 (Escutia) as well as the children’s health initiative on this November’s ballot (Proposition 86).
Although the final budget invests in low-income and safety net programs at a higher level than in previous years and corrects some budget decisions from last year, advocates for low-income and working families hope the legislature will do more to protect California’s most vulnerable populations in the future.
“The restoration of the federal SSI cost-of-living adjustments rights a terrible wrong - the taking away of federal money meant to go to low-income elderly and disabled people. And putting more funds in the CalWORKs program for education, training and childcare is long overdue,” said California Partnership Director Nancy Berlin. “This budget reflects a good choice: investing in our families, providing training and education so families can leave aid for good.”
However, Berlin emphasizes that more must be done since efforts to restore cost-of-living adjustments for CalWORKs families were unsuccessful.
“In 12 of the past 18 years, CalWORKS families, those who can least afford it, have had their COLAs suspended or had grant amounts reduced,” she said. “About a half million of California’s poorest families would benefit if the COLA were restored by enhancing the ability of parents to pay for housing and other basic needs. CalWORKs families continue to shoulder more than their share in balancing the state budget and that must be changed.”
With the ink not yet dry on the approved 2006-07 California budget, work to influence next year’s budget negotiations has already begun. The Legislative Analyst’s Office notes that based on current forecasts, “the state would continue to face multibillion dollar operating shortfalls in 2007-08 and 2008-09.” Your help is needed to ensure that vital safety net programs for California’s most vulnerable are not jeopardized. To get involved, call Clarissa Woo at (213) 977-5241.
JULY 2006
Download Issue as PDF
Lawsuits Challenge Domestic Spying
ACLU/SC Helps Man Win Fight to Become US Citizen
Working for Fairness in Immigration Rights
ACLU/SC Fights anti-Immigrant Effort in San Bernardino
Fullerton Schools Reach Compromise on Laptop Program
