Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - January 16, 2004
Adriel Hampton and Alison Soltau, Staff Writers
"Obviously, the focus has to be on lobbying the state to make sure many of these reductions do not come to pass. Frankly, they were staggering to me in terms of their impact on The City and county," particularly to health services, Rosenfield said.
City departments Friday are to present contingency plans for a 7.5 percent budget cut due to the $18 million loss of the vehicle license fee, although Rosenfield said that was in anticipation of an even larger loss of funds. Already, state cuts and recall-related spending by the Elections Departments has wiped out city reserves.
The greatest impact from proposed cuts would be the ongoing loss of about 10 percent -- $45-52 million -- in local property tax revenues that the state would take to balance its budget. It equates to a quarter of the Fire Department's budget.
The ongoing cuts would amount to a local annual loss of about $100 million, but must first be approved by the Legislature.
Much of the proposed state cut -- $3 million this year and $28 million ongoing -- would fall on seniors and disabled city residents who get in-home care instead of having to live in institutions. Currently, about 12,000 employees provide 13 million hours of service to 14,000 clients, said Phil Arnold, director of finance for the Department of Human Services.
Under the governor's proposal, the state would only pay its minimum wage of $6.75 per hour of service, and would chop health benefit reimbursement for those workers. Arnold said that would result in either a 20 percent cut in hours of service.
Rosenfield said the state budget caps a number of programs for the sick and poor and relies on assumptions such as the passage of the $15 billion bond on the March ballot.
"The more we read it, the more bad news we find," he said.
The proposed cap includes limiting the state program that helps HIV/AIDS patients afford life-saving drugs. About 15 percent of those in the program live in The City and generally about 20 new patients seek the service each month.
Gregg Sass, finance director for the Department of Public Health, said that cut is a matter of life and death -- and a multimillion-dollar cost to The City if it goes through.
City leaders were far from alone, though, as they assessed the impact of Schwarzenegger's budget. More than 300 people on Tuesday protested the cut to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program -- known as ADAP -- in front of the State Building here.
"Thousands of people with AIDS rely on ADAP to get out of the bed in the morning," Carole Migden, chair of the Board of Equalization, told the crowd. "Freezing enrollment in ADAP would be like turning off life support for thousands of Californians with AIDS."
Thursday morning, scores of protesters again converged on the State Building to protest cuts to health and human services programs.
Chinese for Affirmative Action spokesman Ted Wong said the cuts would leave many migrant San Franciscans "hungry, homeless and without health care."
Schwarzenegger has ordered that four programs be removed from state administration and given over to counties to take care of, and to put enrollment caps be put on the programs.
These include Healthy Families program, Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, the California Food Assistance Program, which gives many low-income families food stamps, and Cal-Works that gives welfare to people who don't qualify for federal programs.
"These cuts will hurt the Asian community and other immigrant families," Wong said.
Rally organizer Isabel Alegria said hundreds of seniors, pregnant women and low-income families would be forced onto a waiting list for vital programs.
The governor wants to fund the programs through a block grant, and activists fear that will mean less of all funding available or that counties will discard the programs altogether.
"This is going to affect pregnant women and people who are diagnosed with cancer -- those people don't have the time to be placed on a waiting list," Alegria said.
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