Sacramento ?
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a roughly $92 billion state budget late Wednesday, approving deep, controversial cuts to health care and welfare programs ? but the fate of schools, colleges and universities rests with voters, who will decide this fall whether to raise billions of dollars in taxes.
Brown signed the main budget bill hours after lawmakers passed the final pieces of a spending plan for the fiscal year that begins Sunday, but 12 days after the Legislature sent him the central piece.
?This budget reflects tough choices that will help get California back on track,? Brown said in a written statement. ?I commend the Legislature for making difficult decisions, especially enacting welfare reform and across-the-board pay cuts. All this lays the foundation for job growth and continuing economic expansion.?
Democrats approved some of the most controversial budget cuts Wednesday, including the elimination of a health care program for low-income children called Healthy Families. Despite the action, the budget will not be truly settled until November, after voters decide whether to approve Gov. Jerry Brown?s tax plan.
If they reject it, public schools, colleges and universities will face nearly $6 billion in automatic cuts.
Brown received the final 21 budget bills Wednesday, though the Legislature approved the main portions of the 2012-13 spending plan June 15. He signed that main spending bill Wednesday night, a few hours before a midnight deadline.
His office did not say whether the governor used his line-item veto power to cut spending more than legislative Democrats had approved. Details were to be released Thursday.
Lawmakers negotiated the final pieces of the budget with Brown over the past two weeks, and much of the legislative debate Wednesday focused on the changes to Healthy Families. The 880,000 children in that program will be shifted to the Medi-Cal program, which already provides health services for 3.6 million children whose families have even lower incomes.
Bare majority
In the Senate, all Republicans opposed the plan and four Democrats didn?t vote, giving the measure the bare 21-vote majority to pass. In the Assembly, two Democrats joined Republicans to oppose the cuts as well.
Republicans warned that thousands of children would lose access to health care because many doctors would no longer take the children as patients because they are on the Medi-Cal program, which has lower reimbursement rates.
State Sen. Anthony Canella, R-Ceres (Stanislaus County), said the Legislature often does things he disagrees with, but this went further than usual.
?This action is truly stunning to me because it reaches the level where it is going to hurt so many people,? he said.
But Democrats who supported the change said the measure includes guarantees that children will have medical providers before they are shifted from one program to the other, and accused Republicans of supporting the health program when they have opposed raising revenue to avoid health cuts in recent years.
?This is not a cavalier act. This is a thoughtful, careful transition,? said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
The bill, added Assembly Budget Chairman Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills (Los Angeles County), ?exemplifies how we are making extraordinarily difficult choices in order to get to an overall budget agreement.?
The budget passed by lawmakers expends $91.5 billion through the general fund, with a $788 million reserve. Scant details released by the governor?s office show a different figure, $948 million, for the reserve.
Much of the next year?s projected $15.7 billion deficit would be filled by the sales and personal income tax increases backed by the governor that will be on November?s ballot.
Under the budget plan, funding for K-12 public schools and higher education remains the same, unless the taxes fail. Assemblywoman Kristen Olsen, R-Modesto, criticized that plan, saying that K-12 schools will be subject to 90 percent of the trigger cuts but constitute about half of the overall budget.
?If there?s one thing Republicans and Democrats could agree on, I would think it would be the importance of making education our most important fiscal priority,? she said. ?If we can?t invest in our students, in our kids, then I honestly worry about what the future of our state looks like ? whether my children and your child and grandchild are going to have to leave the state of California to find opportunities elsewhere.?
The budget was approved largely on party lines. Voters gave lawmakers the power to approve budgets with a majority vote of the Legislature via Proposition 25, which was approved in 2010 and took effect in 2011. Democrats hold overwhelming majorities in both houses.
Largest hits
Welfare spending and health care for the poor took the largest hits in the budget. In addition to the elimination of Healthy Families, Democrats and the governor agreed to cut the amount of time adults could spend on the state?s welfare-to-work program, known as CalWORKS, from four years to two unless those in the program meet stricter federal work requirements.
A 3.6 percent cut in reimbursement rates will continue for providers in the In Home Supportive Services program for the blind, elderly and disabled.
Those welfare cuts were among the most debated Wednesday; Assembly Republicans accused the majority party of rolling back reforms enacted under former President Bill Clinton, while Democratic lawmakers defended the state?s program as the one thing protecting low-income children from a hopeless future.
GOP lawmakers also objected to a provision in another bill that may give Brown?s tax proposal top billing on the November ballot by prioritizing constitutional amendments over basic ballot initiatives.
Under the bills approved earlier this month, courts will also take a $544 million hit next fiscal year.
?
Major elements of the budget
? Reduces state welfare benefits for adults from four years to two years, unless they meet stricter federal work requirements.
? Reduces Cal Grant college aid for students at nonprofit private schools in 2013 and again in 2014. Eliminates Cal Grants for students at schools with low graduation rates and high rates of student debt default.
? Eliminates the Healthy Families program that provides health care for 880,000 low-income children and transfers them to the state?s Medi-Cal program.
? Freezes tuition at the University of California and California State University systems, contingent on voter approval of tax increases, UC not raising tuition and CSU rolling back an already approved increase.
? Shifts people who are dually eligible for Medi-Cal and Medicare into managed-care programs.
? Cuts state worker pay by about 5 percent by having employees take off eight unpaid hours per month.
Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/CA-budget-big-cuts-to-welfare-kids-health-care-3668717.php
guacamole recipe jason wu for target underwood buffalo wings superbowl kick off time 2012 new york giants hot wings recipe
No comments:
Post a Comment