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Home > Newsletters > California Caregiver > California Caregiver e-newsletter >
Volume 3, Issue 4 - September 18, 2008
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©Family Caregiver Alliance
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Volume 3, Issue 4, September 18, 2008
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80 Days and Counting--Will State Budget Delays Spell Doom for Older Adult Support Programs?
After weeks of delay, the California budget battle appears to be coming to an end. With the deficit now at an estimated $16 billion, the retrenchment of old and new battles between the Democrat majority and Republican minority doomed a timely budget, which was supposed to have been passed months ago.
To be sure, painful decisions have had to be made, both in cutting expenditures and raising revenues. But because California, the eighth-largest economy in the world, requires a two-thirds majority to pass the budget, the legislature deadlocked. Again. Seven other countries with economies larger than California's can pass their spending plans on time. Why can't we?
What does this do to those community-based organizations that serve you, your parents, spouses, neighbors and children--the ones that help families and caregivers, the ones that you count on for information, support and respite, so you can go to work, so your relative can get care at home? The damage is rippling throughout the state.
During the long fight, service providers have been in the ultimate Catch-22: keeping the doors open to desperate families, borrowing money to make ends meet, and facing a demoralized workforce under the yearly threat of layoffs. With the budget passage delayed, here is another reality for families: many of these services are forced to close, unable to either borrow money in a tight credit market or pass along high loan fees. It's an expensive and unnecessary exercise.
California, in company with our fellow budget super-majority states Arkansas and Rhode Island, played out this sad act over the summer with Democrats and Republicans each proclaiming moral victories for their respective ideologies.
Only this time, there may be fewer of those precious services around for your older and disabled relatives. There will be fewer seasoned professionals around to care for your relatives because they will decide that they have had enough. Those students that schools of nursing and social work are trying desperately to recruit and train to fill current and future workforce shortages may ask why bother to join a profession that society and the legislature do not value. And in a state facing a tsunami of older adults, that may be the saddest legacy of all.
What can be done? In the short term, demand that the budget be passed in a timely fashion. More time rarely yields a different result and definitely has not yielded more money to fix the deficit. Put pressure on your legislators to be open to fair compromise. Make your voice heard by the Governor.
In the long term, California needs to end its two-thirds budget vote and support Constitutional Amendment 22 as proposed by State Senator Tom Torlakson, along with cosponsors Senator Elaine Alquist, Assembly Member Loni Hancock, Senator Sheila Kuehl and Assembly Member Mark DeSaulnier.
But be clear about this: this year's budget delays hurt real people: those who need assistance and those who provide the services. And if you are a caregiver in this state--perhaps one of those "Sandwich Generation" families we hear so much about--most likely it will hurt you, too.
To contact your state legislators, click here.
Kathleen Kelly
Executive Director
Family Caregiver Alliance
San Francisco
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© 2008 Family Caregiver Alliance
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