My name is Joanne Bell and my mother is a participant at the Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay. I am extremely concerned as I am the primary care give for my mother and I risk losing my job in order to care for my mother if the center closes down.
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The 2008-09 State budget includes massive hits against programs designed to assist seniors and persons with disabilities. One particularly devastating cut is that to the renter’s assistance program ($190 million slashed from funding). This means that, with no state budget allocations for this program, claims made in 2008 for qualified seniors and disabled persons will not be paid.
The Renter’s assistance program offers consumers a once-a-year payment to qualified individuals from the state, based on the property taxes they paid indirectly through their rent.
In Bakersfield, consumers have been flooding the Kern Independent Living Center with calls asking when, or if, they will get their checks. For millions of Californians who rely on this program, it’s an invaluable life-line that enables them to purchase bare necessities such as bread and milk.
“We’ve had consumers calling our offices in shock, disbelief, and despair over what they’re going to do,” said Jeannette Pruett, systems change advocate for the Kern Independent Living Center. “Many people still didn’t know about this. So we’ve been calling 300 consumers to notify them that they won’t be getting their checks this year.”
Keep posting your stories, and check back for more updates on the latest budget news!
Keep your stories coming!
It was announced early this morning that legislators and the Governor have come to an apparent agreement on the 2008-09 budget; however, the proposed solution is by no means satisfactory to the millions of Californians who will end up losing in the long-run. In fact, it represents a catastrophic failure of our State to adequately address the long-standing budget crisis and the need for a balanced approach and rational budgeting.
The state has failed Californians by brokering a budget deal that offers no real solutions to California’s considerable long-term budget problems. Even worse, it creates new problems, such as rendering a quarter of a million children without health-care coverage due to increases in unnecessary and burdensome paperwork. This deeply flawed budget deal contains no solutions, creates new problems, and will almost certainly leave us facing another deadlock next year.
In about three months, this whole thing starts over again. The Governor will submit his January budget that will undoubtedly include billions in deficit, paving the way for more destructive cuts to children, seniors, teachers, low-income workers, and disabled persons.
This year, there were no winners, only losers. And this means a long road ahead for all Californians to ensure a chance for a fair, sensible budget that meets our needs.
The People of California deserve better. We need a budget that invests in the future of our state, in our children, seniors, etc. The current budget process is failing California.
Please keep sharing your valuable stories with us in the weeks ahead.
From Anthony Wright – co-founder of MyCaliforniaStory.org
We at Health Access were not fans of the budget deal Sunday, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury News.But now, the Governor has made a bad budget deal worse. (More in the Fresno Bee.) The changes would force even steeper cuts for health care and other vital services in the future.
The budget now prioritizes a so-called “rainy day fund” without raising any money to put into it. Where will those funds come from? Already-underfunded health, education and other needs.
So this budget makes steep cuts (including a quarter-million children uninsured), and does not balance these cuts with revenues. It not only defers the problem, but actively makes the budget worse by taking money from future years that will not longer be available to pay for existing services. And it introduces another priority -the so-called rainy day fund – that will further squeeze health, education, and other vital services.
To read the full posting: The Gov made a bad budget worse….Day 79 of the State budget impasse:
The Legislature ended its 78-day budget impasse in the wee hours Tuesday morning, passing a spending plan with biparisan votes for the plan, but no lawmaker in favor. The final votes was 61-1 in the Assembly (54 votes were needed) and 28-12 in the Senate (27 votes were needed). To read the full posting: Budget blow by blowDay 73 of the State budget impasse:
Today California State Assembly Members Sandré Swanson and Loni Hancock organized a press conference with at the Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay to discuss the real impacts that the States Budget Crisis is having on Health and Human Service organizations. Micheal Pope and Joanne Bell from the center also provided testimony on how this crisis will impact the center, its employees, and its residents.
To listen to their stories: Joanne Bell Micheal PopeOn Thursday September 11th, day 73 of the budget impasse, concerned local residents and advocates came together at the Kern Independent Living Center in Bakersfield to hold a special “Budget Bake Sale” event to raise awareness for the proposed cuts to health and human service programs. The organizers staged the event in order to ask GOP State Senator Roy Ashburn to oppose the devastating cuts that would impose serious hardships on disabled persons, seniors, seriously ill children, and low-income working families. At the end of the day organizers raised over $100, and were able to get more than 30 individuals to sign letters addressed to Sen. Ashburn asking him to support a fair and sensible budget.
The center-piece of the bake sale event was a special half-sheet cake with none other than Senator Roy Ashburn’s picture on it, reminding him to “Please cut responsibly.”
Click here to view the cakeDay 73 of the State budget impasse:
Leaders from Orange County’s community clinics held a press conference yesterday morning urging lawmakers to restore funding to the state’s health care system and to quickly pass a budget that doesn’t cut funding to the county’s poorest residents. The state hasn’t paid nearly $5 million for services to a coalition of 18 community clinics in Orange County because of the budget impasse, and clinic officials said they may have to close their doors if the budget isn’t resolved soon. “We may have to drastically reduce the number of patients we can see here,” said Ed Gerber, director of the Lestonnac Free Clinic in Orange. See the full blog posting here: OCRegisterBy Dan Walters – dwalters@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, September 8, 2008 Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A3 A rundown of how health bills fared during the last days of session, with specific references to SB840, SB1522, AB1945, and SB981. When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ambitious, but deeply flawed, scheme to provide health insurance to millions of Californians died in the state Senate early this year, it reignited the Capitol’s perennial political war over who should get what care and who should pay for it. No other political issue directly affects more people, is more complex, or generates more emotion, for obvious reasons. And no other segment of the California economy involves so much money, upward of $200 billion a year, more than 10 percent of the state’s economic output. To view complete article: Sacramento Bee.www.asm.ca.gov/speaker
www.adc.asm.ca.gov/issues/budget
From Crisis to a Medical Emergency: Budget Cuts Will Pare San Diego's Health Care to the Bone
September 4th, 2008
Day 66 of the State budget impasse:
Posted by Anthony Wright, Executive Director of Health Access California.
The Senate Republicans, with support from their counterparts in the Assembly Republicans, took up the challenge of Sen. Perata to put up a budget.
Health Access has a full SCORECARD of the cuts proposed by the Governor, and how they fared in the Conference Committee Budget Proposal-supported by the Democratic majority in both houses
With the exception of some Medi-Cal provider rate cuts for doctors, the REPUBLICAN BUDGET would make all the health cuts listed.
That means that the Republican budget would have all the consequences detailed in the reports:
We will see if the Republican legislators will want to fully own the full consequences of this budget.
Day 59 of the State budget impasse and a deal may be in the works, but it could mean a tax increase. Word from the Action News capitol bureau—is the state senate has reached an agreement, which will be voted on Friday morning.
See the full article here: KFSN</pCuts threaten vital Services to Disabled Californians – The proposed 10% cuts will have devastating impacts on individuals like David Mensch, 42 of Bakersfield, whose independence and livelihood will come under attack if the cuts are put into effect. The proposed cuts would remove vital services such as meal-preparation, laundry, and other services that help him get ready for the day, allow him to live an independent live with his family, keep his job, and take care of his son.
The crisis facing disabled persons all throughout California is exacerbated by the reductions to in home provider hourly wages, which will drive many qualified workers into other fields for jobs with livable wages. The proposed cuts would slash hourly wages to the state minimum, a loss of $1.00 an hour for providers in Bakersfield. The cut in wages in conjunction with reductions in services will decimate in home care services and jeopardize hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Californians.
You are invited to join our blog to share with us your thoughts, experiences, and opinions about how the proposed budget cuts will affect you, your community, and our state. Our goal is to provide a soapbox for the thoughts and opinions of people usually left out of policy debates – families struggling to survive without health insurance, people with disabilities facing loss of services that allow them to live independently, and family members dealing with a sick child or parent in an overburdened health system.
Please share your thoughts about your daily life, your challenges, your joys, and what you think about California’s budget crisis and how it should be solved.
