Jewish agencies who receive state funding to provide social services are still waiting to determine the exact fallout of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $965 million blue-pencil cuts to the budget deal hammered out 100 days late by lawmakers last week.
While some programs that serve the elderly, the disabled and the abused were spared, others did not fare as well, and how the massive cuts will trickle down from the state to local agencies is not entirely clear. Details are slowly emerging from the 40 bills that made up the budget.
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles (JFS) breathed a sigh of relief when its Multipurpose Senior Services Program was funded in full, according to Nancy Volpert, director of public policy for JFS. The program, whose entire $3 million budget comes from the state, works with case managers to keep around 700 frail and indigent elderly in their homes and out of nursing facilities.
A similar program, Linkages, used case management to help keep disabled adults out of institutions, but that program was shuttered last year and not restored in this budget.
Around $3.5 million of JFS’ $25 million budget comes from the state, down from about $5 million a few years ago. JFS receives around $9 million from state, local and federal sources.
Because California has not been paying its vendors since last year’s budget expired June 30, agencies have had to utilize lines of credit and bridge loans. Last year’s late budget cost JFS around $80,000, Volpert said, and this year’s costs are not yet determined.
JFS was relieved to see that funding for domestic violence shelters was restored to its 2008-2009 level, which was 20 percent higher than the previous year’s funding. Around half of JFS’ $1.6 million for its Family Violence Project comes from the state.
Still up in the air is about $140,000 in grants through CalWORKs that aims at helping victims of domestic violence re-enter the workforce.
Schwarzenegger cut $366 million from CalWORKs, the state’s welfare-to-work program. Jewish Vocational Services (JVS) receives $5 million in CalWORKs funds annually, and it is bracing itself for how the cuts will affect its programs, according to Adine Forman, government relations director for JVS.
Around 70 percent of JVS’ $15 million annual budget comes from government sources.
JVS runs two regions of the county program that provides job training, placement services, case management and referral services for people receiving government assistance. Another CalWORKs program that aids refugees in finding work may also be hit.
“Each of these little pieces that seem like perhaps it’s just a little piece add up to a cumulative impact on the poor, the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled with devastating consequences, and that is the challenge,” JFS’ Volpert said.
And because this is an election year, social service advocates fully expect to be back at the budgeting table in February.
“As one legislator said, it’s not a good budget, but it’s sufficient,” said Monica Miller, a legislative advocate for Jewish Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies in Sacramento for social service agencies. “But I think ultimately we are going to be back here and begin negotiating again because, unfortunately, I don’t think they filled the holes that need to be filled.”
