State budget emergencies go nuclear: cancelled welfare, fired teachers, more

[mgcardin]

Holy shit. I do research and "provide blog content" (I hate that term) for a major U.S. national health care advocacy organization. Right now I'm researching and writing some stuff for this week's update, and the economic news coming out of Arizona and California is pretty shocking. And they're just two of many states facing essentially the same situation.

I hasten to add that, obviously, it's not like we all weren't expecting this, and expecting it for a long time. These really are major, out-in-the-open instances of the system as we have known it beginning to crumble before our eyes -- entirely in accord with the proverbial "peak oil playbook." It's just that to see it actually beginning to happen is quite bracing and sobering.

STATES SLASHING SOCIAL PROGRAMS FOR VULNERABLE
The New York Times (weekend front page story), April 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/us/12deficit.html?_r=1

Battered by the recession and the deepest and most widespread budget deficits in several decades, a large majority of states are slicing into their social safety nets — often crippling preventive efforts that officials say would save money over time.

President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is helping to alleviate some of the pain, providing large amounts of money to pay for education and unemployment insurance, bolster food stamp programs and expand tax credits for low earners. But the money will offset only 40 percent of the losses in state revenues, and programs for vulnerable groups have been cut in at least 34 states, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a private research group in Washington.

Perhaps nowhere have the cuts been more disruptive than in Arizona, where more than 1,000 frail elderly people are struggling without home-care aides to help with bathing, housekeeping and trips to the doctor. Officials acknowledge that some are apt to become sicker or fall, ending up in nursing homes at a far higher cost.

Ohio and other states face large cutbacks in child welfare investigations, which may mean more injured children and more taken into foster care. Despite tax increases, California has ended dental coverage for adults on Medicaid, all but guaranteeing future medical problems.

“There’s no question that we’re getting short-term savings that will result in greater long-term human and financial costs,” said Linda J. Blessing, interim chief of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, expressing the concerns of officials and community agencies around the country. “There are no good options, just less bad options.”

Arizona has one of the nation’s highest deficits in relation to its budget. As revenues sank late last year, forcing across-the-board cuts this spring, the child protection agency stopped investigating every report of potential abuse or neglect, and sharply reduced counseling of families deemed at risk of violence.

PROPOSED CUTS MAY COST STATE $500 MILLION
Ariz. ineligible for federal aid if welfare budget falls too low
The Arizona Republic, April 10
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/04/10/20090410stim-descuts0408.html

Losing the federal funds is "very likely," a Department of Economic Security spokeswoman said, assuming the state agency's budget is cut by at least 10 percent.

As a result, when the new fiscal year starts July 1, Arizona may have walked away from more than half a billion dollars in annual federal aid to the working poor. The cuts would make Arizona the first state in the nation to lose its federal welfare program and the assistance it provides to tens of thousands of people.

"It's beyond comprehension, it's so bad," said Timothy Schmaltz, director of the Protecting Arizona's Families Coalition, an alliance of social-service organizations. "It's overwhelming to contemplate because of the potential impacts across the board. It's unraveling 25 years of progress."

L.A. UNIFIED MOVES TO CUT 5000 TEACHERS AND OTHERS
The Los Angeles Times, April 14
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd15-2009apr15,0,4362057.story

Los Angeles school district officials moved forward Tuesday with plans to lay off more than 5,000 teachers, counselors, custodians, clerks and other employees, but the battle over funding will rage on for weeks -- affecting who goes, who stays and what schools and classrooms will look like for students next year.

The Board of Education's 4-3 vote, after more than four hours of pleading and debate, closed most of a $596.1-million deficit for next year in the nation's second-largest school system.

....The board action affects about 3,500 newer teachers who have yet to earn tenure protections as well as administrators, nursing staff, library aides, computer programmers and others.

....Those still at risk include all teachers without tenure: 1,605 at the elementary level and 1,872 at middle and high schools. The notices also went to 498 other employees with teaching credentials and to 2,875 administrators. Most of those administrators will keep their jobs, but some small campuses will lose a full-time principal.

[JurisDoctorOfDoom]

Administrative note: Usually I would have to say no excerpts due to the MSM copyright law crackdown but I will let it pass as the info is particularly important. (I can also search for "copyright law" should the MSM start complaining.

[thethirstmutilator]

We don't take care of human beings with the love and care we take care of our fucking pets.

[roundhouse]

In most states, the education budget cuts won't be announced for another week or two.  Most teacher contracts stipulate that "if not RIF'd by May 1, they return at their present salary + etc etc).. Point being, most state legislatures are still struggling with their numbers and all the school admin I still know are working on plans A-F in preparation for what appears (in Washington State anyway) to be some pretty horrific cuts but they won't know exactly how bad until the last minute.  There's only so many maintenance workers that can be RIF'd before it hits the classrooms and that is sure to collide with contracted class size language.  If too many teachers are RIF'd, the District would be in violation of contract and have zero dollars to fix it.  I expect this to make headlines all over and soon.

[mgcardin]

Thanks for letting the excerpts pass, Matt. After more than a decade of becoming accustomed to the Internet being the way it's always been in regards to copyright law, links, excerpts, etc., it's going to take me awhile to get used to this newest jihad.

And as you point out, it would seem easy enough to point to well-established legal precedent in the event of anybody's questioning the use of these or any other excerpts on this or any other site in the way that I, you, and all of us use such things.

Then again, a part of me suspects that Big Brother Cometh, and that we should brace for the foreseeable end of this free information and entertainment wonderland.

[Fishsurfer]

It was unsustainable from the get go, this really isn't news to me honestly.  It was just a matter of time.  I'm a believer in helping people out, in paying teachers well; but it must be done at a local level with our own mandates that can actually be funded by our own states tax base for it to have any sustainability. 

[ozzyozzyoi]

Exactly, that amount of public service was never affordable to begin with. Why should government positions be protected any more than those of us who have to toil to make a profit or die?

"we don't take the care of humans we give our pets"

I hear this all the time, and I think its completely mssing the point. There's a reason why someone loves and cherishes thier dog (as does it to him/her) more than the drug-addicted bum on the street.
It's hard to give some humans the same respect as an animal. I don't know of any animal who murders members of its own species for the sheer fun of it.
What other species willingly raises its young to be desensitized to every violent, immoral act, for 'fun'?? Compared to humans, other species are the picture
of angelic goodness. An alarmingly large proportion of humans are as mentally deranged as they are physically. No, I can't think of any other living, breathing group
of mammals that are as undeserving as humans. Not saying we're inherently 'bad', we are a product of our culture and we can change it. By course or by force.

The sad thing is that we will let our elderly suffer while the able bodied will be the last to be taken off welfare. We would forget and dismiss those who worked
hard all thier lives for OUR benefit, because they might have saved, not been wasteful, and actually own something. We won't give them the care they need but we will pioritise those who whine the loudest. It is this culture, this self-victimisation, worshipping the lowest common denominator and pulling down anything half intelligible, that will bring down the US and those who have insisted on following it.

[thethirstmutilator]

we should care for all living things, not just the ones you think merit care.
if a dog is hungry, feed him.
if a bum is hungry, feed him.

that is all.

[Fishsurfer]

I hear ya Ozz, and i think you are right in that this is social conditioning.  It isnt normal to allow your own kind to eat each other for dinner. 

We should be caring for each other, and we shouldn't be supporting massive near untouchable institutions funded by our own money, to never be seen again by the community it came from.  People bitch about free trade and shipping jobs to other countries, but what about shipping 33% of your salary into an imaginary hole while your neighbors have a hard time feeding themselves?  Thats me in a nutshell, im more than happy to snag a friend that needs help and throw down a few hundred dollars of groceries or give him a tip on a job opportunity out of state, hell i may even pay for the plane and hotel if i have to.  People have an amazing ability to do great things, its the phenomenon of spontaneity.  People will do good things if they are left with the devices to do them.  Some neighborhoods in New Orleans are an example of this, they rebuilt their homes and streets on their own with donations snagged from the side of the road and peddling.  Meanwhile down the road, a neighborhood sits in queue for a building permit and grant funding sitting next to rotting structures and plants growing in the pavement. 

[PacifikDreamer]

we should care for all living things, not just the ones you think merit care.
if a dog is hungry, feed him.
if a bum is hungry, feed him.

that is all.

yep, we are conditioned to see them as not deserving

when i see a homeless person now, i try think, what will it be like when i'm there?

what will it be like if i die and my wife is there?

who will feed her?

[lynnie]

Part of Arizona and CA's problem is that they must shell out a good portion of the 400 billion being spent anually to take care of illegals. More than 1/10 school students are children of illegals in AZ and CA.

[Candace66]

That news from AZ, all I can say is "wow." 

I already knew there were gonna be big education cuts in CA, but this place has been in a downward spiral for years now.  The pace seems to be accelerating now, though.

[Broil]

The homeless aren't getting much of any welfare for the most part, that's why they're homeless.

People mix up welfare (as for people whose unemployment has run out, or who are singe mothers) with assistance for the disabled.  I know that many large cities have a significant population who scam the system (or have a very high percentage of unwed mothers) but I don't believe that most welfare assistance goes for those things - I'm pretty sure most of it goes to people who are elderly or otherwise disabled, with any of the hundreds of crippling ailments that can strike any one of us (such as cancer, mental illness, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, brain damage from accidents, etc).

And yes, our society could afford to help the disabled and elderly by cutting WAY back on our national war expenditures.

[mgcardin]

More news that I have come up against tonight as I've gone about my blogging job:

Today the Massachusetts House Ways and Means committee released their budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2010. It contains major cuts to the majority of programs and services for the state's citizens, including a cut of nearly 15 percent to the budget for the state's home care services (the program that provides in-home health and personal services to disabled and elderly people). And this comes on the heels of the same program already having been subject to two previous emergency budget cuts.

The upshot is that if this budget goes through -- and some close approximation of it probably will -- Massachusetts will start cutting an average of more than 4000 elderly and disabled people per month from its home care program.

I don't care who you are, this is heart-wrenching. While I'm definitely among those who have long been displeased with our egregiously bloated nanny state here in the U.S., the hard reality is that lots of people are going to suffer seriously as we helplessly ramp down from our current unsustainable perch. Maybe I'm particularly sensitive to this trend because my wife is disabled and receives SSDI.

[PacifikDreamer]

Part of Arizona and CA's problem is that they must shell out a good portion of the 400 billion being spent anually to take care of illegals. More than 1/10 school students are children of illegals in AZ and CA.

They are CHILDREN you HEARTLESS FUCK!

Did they choose to be born here?  No.  If you want to be pissed about something, be pissed about a system of "free trade" that's bankrupted the US AND Mexico and forced people to face death and alienation in order to survive.

For the love of pete.  There are some people on here for whom the Fema camps can't come fast enough.