Policy Update: California 2009–2010 Budget Summary
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On July 24, 2009 California state legislators approved a state budget that was months overdue. With California being over $26 billion in debt, legislators approved a budget that cut billions of dollars from local governments, education and health and human services. Though drastic cuts were made, no programs were eliminated, as initially proposed in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s May 2009 budget proposal. The final budget was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on July 28, 2009, which included line item vetoes of the budget legislators had approved that amounted to an additional $489 million in cuts.
The direct affect of the budget on low-income Southeast Asian American families is severe. With a low of 17% of Vietnamese Americans to a high of 55% of Hmong American families in California living in poverty1 (both higher than the national average of 12%), the funding cuts to services like education, Healthy Families, In-Home Support Services and Medi-Cal are dire. As a result of the cuts made in the budget, 585,000 children2, including Southeast Asian American children, will be disenrolled from Healthy Families and will no longer have health care. In addition, many Southeast Asian elders and persons with disabilities will also see a reduction in their Cash Assistance Program for Immigrant (CAPI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI)/Supplementary State Payment (SSP) benefits.
What follows is a summary, released by the Legislative Analyst’s Office3 and the California Immigrant Policy Center4, of the 2009-2010 California budget cuts:
2009-2010 California Budget Cuts
Budget cuts to K-14 Education: $6.5 Billion
- Reduces $5.3 billion from K-12 education and $800 million from community colleges through Proposition 98 appropriations
Budget cuts to Health: $2.3 Billion
- Healthy Families Program will lose $179 million in funding, creating the first waitlist for the Health Families Program and leaving thousands of children without access to health care
- Reduces Proposition 36 substance abuse programs by $90 million
- Only In-Home Support Services (IHSS) recipients with a state defined highest need will continue to receive service; over 42,000 Asian Pacific Americans are IHSS recipients with 74% of those being age 65+5
Budget cuts to Higher Education: $2.0 Billion
- University of California and California State University systems will see a decrease of $2 billion in funding through General Fund Appropriations
- CalGrant program though not eliminated, will see a cut of $6.3 million
Budget cuts to Social Services
- Recipients of Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI) will see a reduction in monthly cash aid to $810 for individuals and $1,387 for couples
- Supplemental Security Income (SSI) & State Supplementary Payment (SSP) recipients will see a combined reduction in monthly cash aid of $830 for individuals and $1,407 for couples
- On January 1, 2011 both CAPI and SSI/SSP will no longer receive Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) from the state government; SSI/SSP recipients will continue to receive COLA from the federal government
For more information please contact SEARAC’s California Policy Advocate, Azizah Ahmad, at (916) 428-7444 or azizah@searac.org. To look at a comprehensive summary of the California 2009-2010 Budget please go to the Legislative Analyst Office website at www.lao.ca.gov and the California Immigrant Policy Center website at www.caimmigrant.org.
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