Statement on Passage of 2010 State Budget

The Governor and state lawmakers delivered a blow to low-income families, the elderly, blind and the disabled by passing a FY 2010/2011 state budget that causes untold plain and suffering for our most vulnerable Californians. The budget will shrink California's In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program by $300 million. IHSS allows the elderly and disabled to live dignified lives in their own homes. The new budget also calls for a $256 million reduction to critical childcare services. Many poor and low-income families rely on childcare services in order to work or return to school. The state budget also shortchanges California’s youth by suspending K-14 education funding guarantees and deferring $1.7 billion of current fiscal year funding to next year. The state already has one of the worst staff to student ratios in the country and these budget cuts put California's low-income youth at an extreme disadvantage.

Through his veto powers, the Governor cold-heartedly gutted $366 million from the CalWORKs program and put the onus on the federal government to advance these costs. Tens of thousands of families with children rely upon a large portion of their CalWORKs grant to pay their rent, and the Governor's actions threaten more families with homelessness. In Los Angeles County alone, homelessness among families receiving CalWORKs increased 57 percent to 8,500 families as of July 2010.

As a state's largest, public interest law firm for the poor, serving more than 60,000 individuals and families each year, we see clients who will be impacted by these cuts. Many have already borne the brunt of the nation's economic crisis with the loss of their homes to predatory lending scams; loss of low-wage jobs or reduction in hours - resulting in a rise of evictions, and loss of health benefits. Consider Ms. L, a mentally disabled client who receives care at home from an In-Home Supportive Services worker and relies solely on SSI for income. As a result of these cuts, she may lose her care, which allows her to remain safely in her own home as an alternative to more costly institutionalization.

State lawmakers had every opportunity to listen to the voices of its citizens who called for the passage of a more "humane" budget. In a time of dramatically growing unemployment and income disparities, California could have joined every other state to enact an oil severance tax or closed the loophole in corporate property tax reassessments. Instead, they took the easy way out by adopting a budget that punishes those who already have so little.

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