Schwarzenegger eliminates funding for DV shelters: California

28 posts / 0 new

Thu, 2009-07-30 13:35

Maysie

Quote:

Schwarzenegger eliminates funding for DV shelters

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - making last minute cuts to the budget - eliminated all of the state funding for domestic violence shelters. That's right - all of it.

Although the state Legislature submitted a budget with a 20 percent reduction to the $20.4 million the state provides to agencies that offer domestic violence services, Schwarzenegger slashed the funding by 100 percent Tuesday.
For Catalyst, which relies on state funding for nearly 35 percent of its operating budget, the affect will be "devastating," Executive Director Anastacia Snyder said.

"We're still in shock," Snyder said Wednesday afternoon. "We were bracing for the 20 percent cut, but did not believe the governor could, with a clear conscience, cut 100 percent of funding for services that keep women and children safe and alive."

Link here

Thu, 2009-07-30 13:38

Ghislaine

This was absolutely disgusting. Not only that Maysie, but he also cut child welfare programs. This is the place with some of the richest people on Earth!

Thu, 2009-07-30 14:08

remind

Just watch for it to happen here too, as it will.

Thu, 2009-07-30 14:18

Coyote

"Moderate" Republican my ass.

Thu, 2009-07-30 14:31

Maysie

Bastard. Fuckwad.

This will literally kill women and children, in one of the richest state in the US.

FFS.

Thu, 2009-07-30 14:36

Snert

Axing that $20M will save approximately $0.60 per citizen of California. Some savings.

[IMG]http://i31.tinypic.com/hwmjqt.gif[/IMG][IMG]http://i31.tinypic.com/hwmjq...

Thu, 2009-07-30 15:45

cps

Arnold has a long history of treating women poorly, but this is downright disgusting.

I'll admit that as a young man growing up and into lifting weights he was my hero...as I grew to understand who the man actually was I began to see nothing but a calculating ambition with too much of that boy's club attitude.

Thu, 2009-07-30 17:16

500_Apples

I'm not sure he has a choice.

California has "direct democracy". He can't raise taxes, he can't cut funding for education, and the federal government has refused to bail them out.

They've cut funding to universities and funding for children born sick.

This is what the people of California want until that day they vote themselves higher taxes.

I take back my first sentence. He does have one other choice - he can resign.

Thu, 2009-07-30 17:28

Maysie

$20 million dollars is nothing in a budget the size of California's. I bet if all state legislators refused their most recent pay raise (or two), that would do something. And then perhaps reduced their hours. Forgo their paid lunches for 6 months. That would easily make up for the $20 mill.

And if going into deficit is good enough for the feds (esp under Bush) then it's good enough for California.

Fri, 2009-07-31 21:22

#10

500_Apples

California can't print money the way the federal government, they actually need to have people willing to lend them money.

Yeah the legislators can forgo paid lunches for six months.

And maybe the people can start paying income taxes commensurate with what it takes to run such a state.

If I lived there I would organize Proposition 666: I hereby agree that the government cannot raise taxes, cannot cut spending and must balance the budget by the end of the year.

Fri, 2009-07-31 21:46

#11

Maysie

500 wrote:
I hereby agree that the government cannot raise taxes, cannot cut spending and must balance the budget by the end of the year.

It's stuff like this that continues to make me wonder what you find here on babble that touches you.

And if you're joking, it's not funny.

Nonetheless, given the topic, and the feminist forum location, I need to request that you think about what you just wrote, and cease doing so in this thread. I read your words in the context of this thread to mean that it's okay to allow services to vulnerable women and children to be reduced and eliminated. Hardly a progressive position.

Shelters desperately need more funds. Instead, such funds are reduced or eliminated. Your juvenile fantasy world has no place in this thread.

Fri, 2009-07-31 22:20

#12

500_Apples

Maysie wrote:
It's stuff like this that continues to make me wonder what you find here on babble that touches you.

And if you're joking, it's not funny.

Nonetheless, given the topic, and the feminist forum location, I need to request that you think about what you just wrote, and cease doing so in this thread. I read your words in the context of this thread to mean that it's okay to allow services to vulnerable women and children to be reduced and eliminated. Hardly a progressive position.

Shelters desperately need more funds. Instead, such funds are reduced or eliminated. Your juvenile fantasy world has no place in this thread.

Stop. Breathe. Relax. Think.

You're confusing the "is" statement with the "ought" statement, and then you proceeded to go all condescending. I bet you were very satisfied with yourself, speaking down to another human being.

My point about a proposition was to stress the root cause of the issue of this thread -- the mismanagement of California and the origins thereof in direct democracy. I was making an "is" statement. I don't want these funding cuts to take place like you implied I did, I do worry however that they're a sign of things to come.

You've already shown you don't really understand what's going on with your stated belief that California can just run deficits. They can't, they're not a federal government, they can't just print money. They also can't pass a budget without a two thirds majority in the legislature, which means tax increases are quasi-impossible in their constitutional framework.

I just roommated for a month with a California junior college teacher (he was in town on a research grant), and we discussed these issues at length. He doesn't know if he'll have a job in September. He doesn't know what his salary will be. California just cut post-secondary funding by one third. They've cut funding to schools, they've cut funding for prisons, they've cut funding for sick children, and as we see in this thread, for women's shelters. He said he'd like his taxes to go up.

What you think was a joke was really a commentary on my part on what California needs to do -- modernize its constitution so that it can raise taxes.

Soon we'll start hearing about water sanitation plants not running and 911 response times going up. Public education could be eliminated. It isn't not a joke Maysie. This is a serious problem.

Fri, 2009-07-31 23:19

#13

Maysie

First, why are social services always the first to be cut, always the lowest on the priority list? Does it occur to anyone that spending on abused women results in net gains for the region, in that women will return to paid work, find housing, gain footing and become engage citizens again, as will their children?

Secondly.

500, have you ever been responsible for a significant amount of money, and have you ever been responsible for spending it with a zero deficit?

I have.

Frozen budgets, meaning no increases (or decreases as you've hypothetically put it) mean, in reality, net losses. Overhead and other costs increase every year, and sometimes there is an unanticipated cost mid-fiscal year that was not budgeted for and must be paid for (eg insurance, water, hydro, etc). Such costs can put programs and agencies in jeopardy.

Granted, my experience has been with one business (9 years) and one non-profit service agency (2 years), not a province or state.

I don't feel superior to you. Get over yourself, this isn't about you.

I feel rage about what's happened in California, even though I don't live there. I feel tremendous sadness and fear for women and children and services that will not be available to them.

I find these exercises in hypotheticals meaningless to the point of being soulless.

Fri, 2009-07-31 23:34

#14

martin dufresne

So Michael, why does a film that owes its success to people's emotional impoverishment and identification with a fascistic rape-ist revenge fantasy remain one of your favourite movies?

Sat, 2009-08-01 08:14

#15

Tommy_Paine

Next time, just say "ja'cuse" and then we'll chop of Micheal's head, Robbespierre.

I feel rage about what's happened in California, even though I don't live there. I feel tremendous sadness and fear for women and children and services that will not be available to them.

I agree, Maysie.

Having involvement with a non profit that receives grants and subsidies from all three levels of government has made me think a lot about funding issues. On one hand, I believe the government should be doing this, that it's actually cost efficient to do things this way in the long term.

But on the other hand, I see how it's makes such non profits a political football to be kicked around. And, every time the economy hickups (or goes into siezure) there's the fear--and in California the reality-- that funding will be cut, or eliminated.

And, of course, all that money comes with implied strings-- so to protect your endeavor you certainly don't bite this hand or that. So you keep your mouth shut in the presence of Cabinet Ministers that are lying sacks of shit, for example, and no amount of showers will ever make you feel clean again.

Which makes me think that the non profits and other things should always be trying to exist without government funding of any kind. Not that I think it's possible, or quick or easy to achieve, but while we have time, we should try.

With politics as they exist, all that money is a deal with the devil, and you know he'll be coming for his due at some point.

Which sounds right wing, I know. But I dunno.

Sat, 2009-08-01 08:57

#16

Maysie

Tommy wrote:
Which makes me think that the non profits and other things should always be trying to exist without government funding of any kind. Not that I think it's possible, or quick or easy to achieve, but while we have time, we should try.

Tommy thanks for your comments. I agree.

There's an incredible book called "The Revolution will not be Funded" which is about exactly this issue.

As grassroots orgs moved to service delivery models, gained stable funding, they lost some or all of the political motivation, and for many have become tied to the needs of the funders, and not the needs of those they serve, and in fact need a new model to do their work in a new (old?) way. This book, most of the examples are in the US context but still very valuable lessons to be learned.

However, the reality is that shelters are vulnerable to cuts, and cutting 100% of state funding to women's shelters is unprecedented I think. It's something only Mike Harris would do.

Sat, 2009-08-01 09:22

#17

Tommy_Paine

It's something only Mike Harris would do.

Did Harris ever entirely cut funding to any organization? I can't remember. And, I'm not deffending Harris, quite the contrary. A cynical, or as they might say savvy politician would always want to keep some strings on these organizations. You know, controling them by ensuring they always have something to lose. I'm sure it's the only reason behind Liberal government spending on social programs and projects.

It might be interesting to see what happens, political action wise, to those shelters in California that end up surviving, and what political price they make Arnold pay.

Sat, 2009-08-01 12:34

#18

remind

So much for "progressive" Hollywood, not one word has come out from them about this, it goes to show exactly who they are NOT.

Sat, 2009-08-01 16:20

#19

abnormal

Things in California are going to get a lot worse before they get better. The next big issue looks to be public sector pensions - they're due to end up on a ballot sooner rather than later:

http://www.californiapensionreform.com/

Quote:
California officials haven't quite figured a way out of our current budget mess. But already, the next big budget buster is on the horizon. It's the system of retirement benefits guaranteed to public sector employees.

Sat, 2009-08-01 16:31

#20

remind

And thus the plan of taking away continues on.

Sat, 2009-08-01 17:02

#21

abnormal

I don't want to derail this thread but public sector pensions are a big issue everywhere, not just in California. The difference is that California voters can put a lot of things on a ballot that they can't do in other states.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/politics/ny-pojani2012981725jul19,0,5985739.column

Quote:
Six months ago, it was noted here that despite investment collapses worldwide, active and retired participants in New York City's teacher pension system draw an exceptional taxpayer-guaranteed return of 8.25 percent annually on savings funds known as 403(b) plans.

Many times before and since, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called the city's pension burden unaffordable and said, "We simply have to find a way to rein it in."

That juicy 8.25 percent retirement-savings benefit for one Teachers Retirement System option - set by lawmakers - was due to expire June 30, so a cluster of political questions hovered for a while. Would active and retired teachers, who stood to be affected by a possible cut to 7 percent, raise a ruckus this year during Bloomberg's re-election bid? Would their union? How aggressively might the administration pursue savings?

A collision has been averted for the time being. In Albany, Bloomberg's office has pushed for, and won, a one-year legislative extension of the 8.25 percent guarantee - among other key rates and assumptions. That puts off the fate of the TRS payout into what will either be the first year of Bloomberg's third term, or the first mayoral term of Democrat William C. Thompson Jr., now comptroller.

The Bloomberg memo in support of the extension says that the city's independently-appointed actuary lacked "sufficient time," before the legislative session's end, to complete a crucial evaluation of contribution rates to municipal pension funds.

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090719/OPINI...

Quote:
He found that teachers, like most public employees, enjoy benefits far more generous than those of the ordinary taxpayer, and offered some good explanations why.

Not so long ago, teachers were poorly paid, and school districts established rich benefits packages to compensate for that. The precedents were set long before health care costs soared, and the agreements for buybacks and longevity pay (which rewards teachers at the top of the salary scale) were easy giveaways at the negotiating table.

But once given away, those now-far-more-expensive benefits packages are nearly impossible to take back because teacher unions - like all public employee unions - are both powerful and understandably interested in getting what they can for their members.

....
.

The reality is, however, that government is being asked to downsize at the local level, not because people want police, firefighters, teachers and other municipal workers to lose their jobs and benefits, but because ordinary taxpayers - themselves denied pay raises, charged more for their own benefits and afraid of losing their homes to a layoff or cutback at work - are less and less able to afford the upkeep.

Benefits packages for public employees that were easily affordable decades ago and which are far more generous than those of ordinary citizens are an increasingly heavy burden. School committees, mayors and town managers are being asked to do something to preserve essential services while lightening the load.

All that, of course, is best worked out at the bargaining table, but if it is not, public employees will lose their most important benefit: the support of the public who employs them. In the long run, that would be disastrous for them - and for the rest of us.

.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13983688

Quote:
PENSIONS are expensive to provide. People are living longe
r, investment returns over the past decade have been dismal and interest rates are low. All this makes a given annual payment costlier to fund. In the private sector, employers are balking at the cost of defined benefit (DB) schemes, in which pensioners are paid a proportion of their final salaries. Many have been shut to new members or discontinued altogether. In Britain, closed DB schemes outnumber open ones by almost three to one.

In the public sector, however, final-salary schemes live on. In part this may be because of a conscious decision to reward workers in vital services such as the armed forces and the police. However, it may also be because the true cost of those pension promises is not being properly allowed for. "Governments are not accounting for what they have promised in the past and are understating what workers are being promised for the future," says John Prior of Punter Southall, a firm of actuaries.

Unfortunately I think the result is easily predictable.

Sat, 2009-08-01 18:20

#22

Maysie

Tommy wrote:
Did Harris ever entirely cut funding to any organization?

Well what Harris did was cut funding for second stage housing. For those who don't know what that is, it's housing that's not in a shelter, but it provides more support than completely on-one's-own independent living. The rents are also subsidized, and therefore affordable. Something like a small apartment building or a block of townhouses in which a staff or two are available for support, accompaniments to appointments, advocacy, etc. Second stage housing, by the way, like women's shelters and rape crisis phone lines, was fought for and advocated for by feminists for many years.

Harris cut all provincial funding for this service. Since no organization that I know of in Ontario provided only second stage housing, then I suppose I was mistaken in my statement above.

All shelter funding was slashed under Harris and nobody's waiting any more for McGuinty to reinstate it. So, slashed, not completely eliminated.

Sat, 2009-08-01 19:55

#23

Tommy_Paine

All shelter funding was slashed under Harris and nobody's waiting any more for McGuinty to reinstate it. So, slashed, not completely eliminated.

But McGinty has all kinds of money for E Health board members to fly around for meetings and limo rides. Always money for shelters and subsidies for the rich.

And people wonder why I go balistic when the subject of "strategic voting" rears it's putrid head.

I digress.

Fundraising is not my forte, so this is very much "armchair" musings, but it seems to me that the way shelters and non profit day cares and such have to go is to create foundations (at least that's how I understand them) where principle or capital is put away over the long term, and only the interest, or a portion, is allowed to be spent.

I can imagine that the problem here is that all money that comes in is desperately needed at the time. Foundations, if that's the proper term-- perhaps trust is better--are very much a long term project. However, a lot of non profits and such have been around a long time, and if when they were founded this was undertaken....

I heard a Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree is twelve years ago. The second best time is now.

Ben Franklin started a trust, intended to assist young apprentices, but modified somewhat when that system became obsolete. It was finally broken up, as per his will, two hundred years after it was established from his estate. Of course, we can certainly wonder about his social priorities today, but one cannot quibble with the long term success of the idea.

Sun, 2009-08-02 07:43

#24

Maysie

Quote:

Gov. Schwarzenegger Cut 100% of Domestic Violence Funding and What Californians Can Do About It

Earlier this week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a budget plan sent to him by legislators to close the state's deficit, but only after he used his line-item veto power to slash an additional $500 million in cuts.

According to the LA Times the additional cuts Schwarzenegger made Tuesday took funding from the most vulnerable:
• $80 million that pays for workers who help abused and neglected children
• $50 million from Healthy Families, which provides healthcare to children in low-income families
• $50 million from services for developmentally delayed children under age 3
• $16 million from domestic-violence programs
• $6.3 million from services for the elderly.

What do all these dollar amounts mean? Well, take for instance, The Domestic Violence Center in Santa Clarita Valley outside of Los Angeles who has lost 45% of their annual funding. In their case, unless the community steps in they will have to shut their doors as a result to these cuts.

....

It's easy to point the finger at Schwarzenegger, but the reality is that the California Legislature can override the governors veto power, but rather than deal with this issue, the Legislature went on vacation.

Link here.

Sat, 2009-08-15 03:15

#25

Fidel

[url=http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12883228]Bring out your dead![/url] Los Angeles families can't afford to bury their loved ones. Poor in LA compete with dead people for rations in the land of economic Darwinism