California's budget signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week contains drastic and unprecedented safety-net social service program cuts, including eliminating health insurance for many children as well as reducing healthcare for thousands of frail elderly, say California Catholic Conference officials.

The $88 billion budget package, approved by legislators July 24 following a grueling "all-nighter," mostly closed California's $26.3-billion deficit with broad cuts to state government. At Tidings' press time July 28, the governor was expected to announce his line-item vetoes necessary to close a shortfall of $1.1 billion.

"This budget is one of a continuing series of inadequate fixes to California's fiscal problems," said Steve Pehanich, CCC's senior director for advocacy and education. "Cuts to the safety net are severe and will not be repealed anytime soon."

More than $2 billion in cuts have been slated for safety-net programs, including CalWORKS, In-Home Supportive Services and Medi-Cal, according to analysts at the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization. A total of $9 billion in cuts are slated for education --- including K-12 schools, community colleges, state universities and the UC system --- and $1.2 billion will be cut from the state's prisons.

Other programs facing major cuts include "Healthy Families" (low-cost medical insurance program for low-income children), mental health services, care for HIV/AIDS patients, adult day care and community clinics. An estimated $1.3 billion cost savings will be realized from the three unpaid furlough days mandated for state employees. And, for the first time, cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for the elderly and disabled will have a two-thirds vote requirement.

"One of the more insidious things is that COLAs for the elderly, blind and disabled previously passed by majority vote are now subject to a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, [a requirement which produces] gridlock in the budget every year," said Pehanich.

He noted the "noticeable" lack of cooperation among Sacramento's lawmakers. "Instead of the budget crisis bringing out the best in people, legislators are solidifying their positions," commented Pehanich.

According to Linda Wanner, CCC's associate director for governmental relations, "As budget negotiations were taking place behind closed doors, we kept hearing that the safety net for California's most vulnerable people was preserved. But, in actuality at the end, it was gutted with drastic cuts affecting our children --- reducing children's grants for the first time in the history of the CalWORKs program if adults do not comply with work requirements.

"Parents," she noted, "would also lose support services such as childcare and transportation, which eases their transition back to work. [In addition] The Healthy Families program stopped enrolling eligible children on July 17 and will now begin dropping eligible children, jeopardizing health coverage for hundreds of thousands of children, which in turn will cause visits to emergency rooms to skyrocket. Where is the money savings in this?"

If there is "a slight bright side" to this, she added, "it is that these painful cuts and sanctions will not be placed on our vulnerable population until July of 2011, but that doesn't change the outcome. As we all know, once you lose something, it is very hard to get it back."

Budget analysts estimate that more than 500,000 eligible children will either be dropped or not allowed to enroll in the Healthy Families program. Approximately 40,000 disabled people, representing 10 percent of patients currently in the IHSS program, will lose their coverage because of the budget cuts. And, if the CalWORKs program budget cuts are not restored by their 2011 enactment date, aid to minors will be cut in half after nine months.