By Dana Mandolesi on February 5, 2010
Wed, February 17 @ 11am:
Board of Supervisors Budget & Finance Committee Hearing on HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Human Services Agency, Aging and Adult Services, Public Health, and Children Youth and Families
*This meeting will be held in the Board Chamber and will start at 11:00 am, but this item will be calendared towards the end of the agenda.
Departments will present the following information:
1) review of department’s major functions
2) new fees, charges, or revenues used to balance the budget
3) major changes to personnel, including deletion of positions,downgrades, and reorganization
4) contracting out proposals, if any
5) administrative reductions, including management and supervisory positions, and reductions to contracts
6) description and impact of service reductions
Posted in Local Foster Care Policy Updates, Upcoming Events | Tagged budget, health and human services, san francisco
By admin on February 5, 2010
SAVE THE DATE!!
Wednesday, February 24, 9:45-12pm
@ the Bernal Gateway Community Room
3101 Mission Street (at Cesar Chavez)
As the budget fight this year winds up, the community needs to be prepared for what to expect from this budget season, and begin to think about strategy. Special guests will include Raquel Redondiez from Supervisor Avalos’ office, and Leo Levenson from the Controller’s office! Join us, hear an update on the budget planning for this year and next fiscal year, and be a part of the strategizing for how to preserve a safety net for SF children, youth and families!! PLEASE RSVP to Chelsea: cboilard@colemanadvocates.org<mailto:cboilard@colemanadvocates.org>.
Posted in Upcoming Events | Tagged avalos, budget, Coleman Advocates, san francisco
By admin on February 1, 2010
[note from Amy Lemley, of the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes 1/28/09]
AB 12 passed in the Assembly yesterday with a final vote of 72 to 0! The bill had strong bipartisan support, with both Democrats and Republicans speaking on the floor about how AB 12 will better support youth in their transition from foster care.
Of considerable help was yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, which ran an editorial urging the Legislature to pass AB 12. This is the second editorial by the paper in support of extending foster care to age 21. It states, “With a $20-billion budget gap, California needs every penny it can get from the federal government, and now that the child welfare money actually can be spent on helping youth rather than supporting outmoded programs, the state must grab it. Too often, rules limit the usefulness of federal money. Not this time. AB 12 allows the state to multiply the power of its dollars many times over. Lawmakers should not miss the rare chance to simultaneously save money and help Californians in need.”
To read the full editorial in the LA Times, follow this LINK.
Thank you to everyone who has worked to get AB 12 this far. After our request for letters last week, I received confirmation from over 100 people that they had written to their member of Assembly, urging them to vote for AB 12. Your voices were clearly heard.
From here, AB 12 moves with bipartisan support into the State Senate, where it will next be heard in the Senate Human Services Committee and if passed, onto the Senate Appropriations Committee. If our efforts are successful, it will then move onto Governor Schwarzenegger for his signature.
Thank you again for your deep commitment to children and youth in California’s foster care system.
Posted in Featured Content, State Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged AB 12, assembly, budget, california, federal money, foster care
By Sara Razavi on January 27, 2010
Thanks to our many partners including HSN and Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth we continue to receive the most up-to-date information about local budget planning. For those working on behalf of, or directly with, foster youth we urge you to review Human Services Agency Department FY10-11 Budget Presentation found at this link http://sfhsa.org/1610.htm (in case you don’t have time to review, below is a short summary):
Summary of HSA FY10-11 Budget Presentation:
The HSA FY10-11 Budget report states that the city is facing a $466 million shortfall in FY10-FY11 (July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011).
The mayor has instructed each department to cut 30% from their General Fund allocations spending.
20% of this is in actual cuts and 10% is cuts as contingency planning. Together this equals 30% cuts in total.
For HSA this equals $28.5 million
HSA is the department which oversees Family & Children Services (FCS) division which implements child welfare services in San Francisco. FCS is expected to absorb 5% of HSA cuts which equals close to $1.4 million
Each division of HSA including FCS is following the same “Budget Reduction Plan” which includes the following principles:
- Focusing on programs with general fund spending
- Not planning cross-the-board cuts to programs
- Looking at aid and non-aid budgets
- Seeking reductions in CBO contracts
- Developing plans to increase federal and state revenues
- Searching for internal efficiencies
This plan is not unlike what the department had proposed during the last round of cuts and simply means doing less with less. Since the focus of the cuts will be on programs whose primary funding source is general fund dollars this limits the impact on foster care reimbursement rates which are drawn from federal dollars, however, the cuts still deeply affect local families and children before foster care because local dollars are generally used for preventative measures which support local families prior to the full-scale involvement of child welfare services. Though the department has committed to not cutting programs “cross-the-board” that is no assurance for keeping programs which may be so understaffed they are ineffective. For example over the last 18 months alone FCS has lost 67 staff positions and an additional 5 eligibility workers which equals a total of 72 positions which were formerly designated to improved outcomes for local foster youth. Some of the lost 72 positions were part of a division “Reorg” and reductions may have actually been part of improved efficiencies, however, with more and more looses in positions and services, the outcomes for youth will inevitably be affected.
Please continue to keep involved in this process by:
a) Remaining linked to groups providing summaries and updates (i.e. HSN, Coleman, and for Foster Care specific, HEY)
b) Attend information meetings including:
- The department will present a more specific cuts plan to the Commission on January 28 and February 10
- Budgets will be submitted to Controller’s Office February 22
Posted in Local Foster Care Policy Updates, Trends To Watch | Tagged budget, Coleman Advocates, cuts, general fund cuts, human services network, san francisco
By admin on January 21, 2010
SACRAMENTO (OBSNews.com) – Sen. Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) issued the following statement on Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget for 2010-11. The Governor’s proposal included no state revenue options and drew heavily on cuts to health and human services (43% of solutions), the federal government (35% of solutions) and revenue shifts, fees or local revenue deferrals (23% of solutions).
A stipulation in the Governor’s budget would eliminate entirely the CalWORKs, IHSS, and Healthy Families programs as well as transitional housing placement for foster youth, and funding for enrollment growth at the UC and CSU systems if the federal government does not pay $6.9 billion to the state.
“Yesterday the Governor spoke of team work and the spirit of collaboration. Today he unveiled a budget which holds the most vulnerable in our state hostage for federal monies.
Posted in State Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged budget, california, calworks, cedillo, cuts, health and human services, healthy families
By admin on January 21, 2010
[from Reuters.com By Steve Gorman 1/12/10]
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The latest budget plan from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would force 200,000 children off low-cost medical insurance, end in-home care for 350,000 infirm and elderly citizens and slash income assistance to hundreds of thousands more.
And that’s the best-case scenario under Schwarzenegger’s prescription for filling the state’s $19.9 billion deficit.
HEY comment: HEY specifically advocates for transitional age current and former foster youth, and is working with partners against these and other cuts. The depth of how many foster care and transitional age youth services is not fully expressed in this article. There are multiple cuts to foster care services, group homes, country funded social workers, and to former foster youth housing programs. However, this article helps to express the breadth of the affect of these budget cuts by showing the many populations hurt by these cuts.
[from Reuters.com By Steve Gorman 1/12/10]
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The latest budget plan from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would force 200,000 children off low-cost medical insurance, end in-home care for 350,000 infirm and elderly citizens and slash income assistance to hundreds of thousands more.
And that’s the best-case scenario under Schwarzenegger’s prescription for filling the state’s $19.9 billion deficit.
Refusing to consider broad tax hikes, he is relying mostly on $8.5 billion in reduced expenditures including drastic cuts to health and social spending that has long made California one of the leading U.S. states in providing help to the needy.
Posted in State Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged budget, california, foster care, funding, medicaid, medicare, welfare cuts
By Dana Mandolesi on January 19, 2010
[from The New York Times, January 15th, 2010, By GERRY SHIH]
In the summer of 2008, a 13-year-old boy from San Francisco emerged from a government van and scanned his new surroundings. Five handsome houses, a small school and an old gymnasium stood on 11 rural acres in the Central Valley that bordered an almond orchard.
Beyond the last house was a soothing panorama of unbounded farmland, interrupted only by old Highway 99 and the big rigs that rumbled across the horizon.
For more than two decades, this has been the setting that greeted more than 2,400 wards of the state as they arrive at the Excell Center ranch, a group home for foster boys with histories of violence or mental disabilities. It is situated just outside Turlock, 40 miles southeast of Stockton.
That the Excell Center, which now houses 52 youths from ages 10 to 18, has survived the die-off of foster homes is partly a matter of real-estate economics: it costs less to house people in the heart of the Central Valley than it does in urban areas, and it costs less to pay workers to take care of them.
The other underlying economic reality, recently confirmed by a panel of federal judges, is that for 18 years, the state’s reimbursement for foster care has fallen woefully short of its minimum goals. The combination of the two means foster care in the Bay Area has been hit harder than anywhere else in the state.
In a tale all too familiar in cash-strapped California, the foster care system has been coming apart from inadequate state financing for at least 20 years, officials at the county level say. In the past two months, a succession of key court decisions in favor of care providers lifted hopes that the judicial rulings might finally turn things around, but the lawsuits have simultaneously shed light on a system that has been cut to the bone.
Visit heysf.org to read the full article
Posted in State Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged berkeley, budget, california, child welfare, foster care, san francisco
By admin on December 14, 2009
[from Chelsea Boilard, Coleman Budget Advocates 12/14/09]
Last Thursday, DCYF Director Maria Su gave a presentation at the Citizen’s Advisory Council meeting on the state of DCYF’s budget. She said that Mayor Newsom had asked departments to submit proposed mid-year cuts of 3.9% (amounting to $1 million for DCYF), and that while they found more than half of that amount in cost-savings that would not impact direct services, an additional $400,000 could come from family support services (still to be confirmed by the Mayor). Since the Mayor’s instructions said to bypass department commissions, proposed cuts from other departments are not yet public or available.
That’s only for this fiscal year, and experience with this administration should lead us to anticipate further mid-year cuts before June. Next fiscal year, the city is forecasting a $522 million deficit, and Mayor Newsom has instructed city departments to cut 30% of their general fund budgets (a year after his instructions to cut by 25%). For DCYF alone, that amounts to $11 million in reductions, including both General Fund and Children’s Fund reductions (and if property taxes continue to decline, that could increase). We have heard from multiple department heads that last year’s reductions already left city departments with bare bones and the $522 million question: What else can we cut?
But maybe that isn’t the right question.
How many years have struggling families, seniors, immigrants, homeless, people of color and low-income residents had the city budget balanced on their backs, at their expense? For how long has big business gotten incentives from City Hall while critical services for the working class of San Francisco– those who make the city’s economy run– are whittled away? When are our communities going to take a stand, and say, “Basta! Enough is enough!” and hold decision-makers (at the local and state levels) accountable to truly providing for all of the City’s residents?
We have a Mayor who refuses to engage in real conversation about progressive revenue, and tens of millions in property tax appeals, 80% of which are commercial properties. In a city which has prioritized the needs of downtown over its children and struggling families for years, there is no time like the present to take a stand. We are now hearing calls for hundreds and thousands of San Francisco residents to stand up, exhausted by years of being dismissed and discounted, but energized by the knowledge that they are not alone in their frustration and also not alone in their hope for a better city.
Posted in Local Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged budget, san francisco
By admin on December 14, 2009
[from Debbi Lerman, San Francisco Human Services Network, 12/14/09]
The Mayor’s complete list of mid-year reductions is expected to be released this week. The Mayor’s Budget Office asked departments to submit their proposals to cut general fund by 3.9% on December 4, but those lists were not made public. However, the Public Health Department list came out today, and the Health Commission will hold a hearing at 4 pm on Tuesday, December 15.
I’ve received no information yet from the Human Services Agency. DCYF said that over half of the proposed mid-year cut consists of internal cost-savings and unspent contract funds that will not affect direct services, but about $400,000 would come from family support services (if the Mayor approves the plan). The Department on the Status of Women said they protected direct services. The Juvenile Probation mid-year cut proposal is posted, but contains only general information. Most of the cuts were to administrative and probation positions.
The Department of Public Health’s mid-year target was $13.2 million, but they were unable to achieve the full reduction. The Mayor approved a lower reduction of $7.4 million. These cuts will also reduce their FY 2010-11 budget by $9.2 million. The DPH budget website has both a summary and the write – ups on each specific cut. Most cuts would take effect in February or March.
The list includes several cuts to substance abuse services, including reducing city funding to backfill state cuts for drug MediCal and Prop 36. The city also plans to close two substance abuse residential facilities as of March 1, using the pending results of the Community Behavorial Health RFP to select the lowest-scoring facilities. The city would also provide only a partial backfill of state HIV prevention reductions, a cut that will eliminate or reduce a number of community-based programs. DPH also projects savings in unexpended contract funds, to be achieved by limiting contract modifications.
Other reductions include some changes in SFGH and LHH staffing (though with minimal layoffs), some programs that can be funded through non-general fund sources, and discontinuing the city’s backfill for the UC Regents Trauma Recovery Center.
Once the Board receives the Mayor’s mid-year cut list this week, they will have 45 days to review it and hold hearings. They may accept some cuts, or substitute equivalent cuts (which do not have to be in the same department). Because the DPH cuts are going to the Board for approval rather than the Health Commission, the Board will also have the required Beilensen hearing during the 45-day review period.
Posted in Local Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged budget, dph, human services agency, san francisco
By Dana Mandolesi on September 22, 2009
From San Francisco The Human Services Network, 9/18/09
The Controller has updated his report on the General Fund impact from adoption of the State budget. The estimate is $26.5 million, which is down from $36.7 in the August preliminary report. The City’s FY 2009-10 budget includes a set-aside of $18 million to address state reductions, leaving [...]
Posted in Local Foster Care Policy Updates | Tagged budget, fiscal climate, human services network, san francisco, shortfall
