The Board of Supervisors adjourned shortly before midnight last Monday– after passing the final budget with Mayor Newsom’s blessing, but also dropped two Charter Amendments and postponed a third for the following week. The Board Budget Committee had done a great job on July 1st passing a balanced budget that saved crucial services. But because they could not get the Mayor’s approval before sending the budget to the Full Board, there was no assurance Newsom would spend any of this money – making it an incomplete victory. This forced the Supervisors to cut a deal last night, and some will no doubt complain about its details. But the Board did what they had to do – under our current system – to protect funding priorities. Until we amend the City Charter to end the Mayor’s unilateral power to refuse to spend money, the process will keep being this one-sided and dysfunctional.

Normally, the Budget Committee cuts a deal with the Mayor around June 30th or July 1st – which preserves “add-back” money. In fact, most non-profit employees who get cut by the Mayor’s Office each year take their annual vacations in July – after spending an exhausting month fighting to restore their funding. The budget still has to pass the Full Board for final approval before the end of July, but that step is often just a formality.

But this year, Newsom would not come to an agreement with the Budget Committee. Only a $4 million gap existed in negotiations, but Newsom insisted that the Committee dump a series of Charter Amendments curbing the Mayor’s power. Frustrated, Budget Chair John Avalos finally passed a budget without the Mayor’s support – which saved crucial services. But we knew there was no guarantee the “add-backs” would be honored.

That’s because the City Charter gives the Board (as the legislative branch) the power to appropriate money, but only the Mayor (as the executive branch) the power to spend. It effectively gives Newsom a “back-door veto” of any funding the Supervisors feel should be funded – unless the Board gets the Mayor to promise he will honor their priorities.

After the Budget Committee passed the budget on July 1st, budget negotiations stalled. As Chris Roberts reported in the SF Appeal on July 15th, Avalos said Newsom had not spoken to him since July 1st – and he had only met with the Mayor’s Chief of Staff two or three times. From what I can tell, there were no budget negotiations until yesterday – when the Board recessed at 5:00 p.m., and re-convened 4½ hours later.

So what was the end product Monday night, after the Full Board passed the final budget?

First, here is the good news. All the $40 million in “add-backs” the Budget Committee had passed on July 1st were intact, along with a few more restorations that included: (a) $50,000 of the $100,000 HSA-funded program for Hoarders & Clutterers, (b) $500,000 of the Ethics Commission Public Finance fund, (c) $800,000 for psych beds at SF General Hospital, and (d) another $1 million in violence prevention programs.

In exchange, the Supervisors agreed to restore two of the Mayor’s Pet Projects they had previously cut out of the budget – $250,000 for the Kids2College Savings Program (or Baby Bonds II), and $260,000 to get a permanent home for Project Homeless Connect. In addition, the Mayor insisted on restoring the one Fire captain position the Budget Committee had cut.

The latter is an EMS Captain position that can be done by a civilian employee, and who the Firefighters Union had told Budget Committee members they could concede. Despite media coverage on bloat in the Fire Department, final talks with Mayor Newsom to pass a budget ended up restoring the only position that the Budget Committee had cut during deliberations.

But again, the Supervisors didn’t have much of a choice – not when failing to make a deal would mean the Mayor can ignore all the “add-backs,” and make unilateral cuts in the middle of the year. The price for Newsom’s Pet Projects was secure “add-backs.”

Similar to what happened last year, the Board got Newsom to agree to two things that should secure the “add-back” money. One was a requirement that – should cuts due to the state budget become necessary, the Mayor will re-submit a proposal for “mid-year cuts” to the Board for a formal “up-or-down” vote. Of course, such a measure ought to be required in the City Charter – so it doesn’t become a bargaining chip the Board has to demand each year.

The other was to put $44 million of the budget – an equivalent of how much there are in “add-backs” – on reserve, so that the Mayor could not spend that money until the Board releases this funds. Effectively, this puts the “add-back” money at the top of the funding priority list – because the other $44 million has to be spent later. The Supervisors passed a similar proposal by David Campos last year, and the effects of that strategy were quite successful.

Of course, the Supervisors also rejected two Charter Amendments – which would have split appointments to Commissions between the Mayor and Board. Ross Mirkarimi’s proposal for the Recreation & Park Commission failed by a 6-5 vote, and David Campos tabled his measure to change the composition of the Rent Board. A third, which would allow for split appointments to the MTA Commission, was postponed until next week.

This led Supervisor Chris Daly to accuse some of his colleagues of engaging in quid pro quo – as Newsom had insisted three weeks ago that these Charter Amendments be disposed. But there was never any guarantee that the voters would pass these “split-appointment” measures, which do not have the same track record of passing like they did in the Willie Brown era. When the alternative was unilateral mid-year budget cuts, the Board was stuck between a rock and a hard place – and I don’t fault the choice they made.
But the Supervisors passed a Charter Amendment yesterday that could curb the Mayor’s power, and at least bring a vestige of function to City Hall. While it would not block the his unilateral power to make budget cuts, Question Time would require Newsom (or any Mayor) to make a monthly appearance at the Board of Supervisors for policy discussions.

The voters passed Question Time as a non-binding resolution in 2006, but Newsom refused to attend. It was back on the ballot in 2007 as a mandatory Charter Amendment, and the Mayor then worked feverishly to defeat it with mass corporate money – and it failed narrowly.

“I can’t think of a better time than right now for the Mayor to come speak to us,” said John Avalos at the Board meeting. “He should come talk to us about the Budget.”

Not only can the Mayor refuse to spend appropriated money – giving him an effective trump card in the budget process – but he’s under no obligation to meet the Supervisors at a public Board meeting, opting instead to cut deals with them behind closed doors. And despite the Supervisors spending hours yesterday hoping for a resolution to this year’s budget – as people like me kept pestering them in the hallway – we never saw the Mayor.

Question Time would not resolve all the dysfunction and imbalance that exists in our budget process, but as a Charter Amendment it would at least be a good start.

Related posts:

1. San Francisco Supes Give Final Approval to Budget
2. LOCAL BUDGET
3. San Francisco Supes Give Final Approval to Budget

Between the disastrous budget years that helped push Gov. Gray Davis from office in 2003 and the disastrous budget years that have plagued the second term of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, there was one year — 2006 — when everything seemed rosy. The mortgage market was booming, the economy was humming, and the governor proposed a budget that continued to pay down Davis-era debt. Democrats in the Legislature instead tried to use some of that money for program expansions. As usual, they and the governor locked horns, but gently, given the comfortable level of revenue expected.

Then the April tax payments came in and shocked everyone. California was rolling in unanticipated money. Our tax system is heavily weighted toward income taxes on the wealthy, so when well-to-do investors have a good year on Wall Street or realize profits from lucrative investments, the state hits the jackpot along with them — and that’s what happened in 2006. Led by a group of Google backers who cashed in their chips, wealthy taxpayers gave the budget a surprise boost.

So what was the state to do with all that extra money? Democratic Assemblywoman Karen Bass of Los Angeles had a smart plan to spend $82 million of it on a long-needed overhaul of the foster care system that would keep more children with their relatives instead of sending them to group homes or into foster care.

Schwarzenegger and Republicans in the Legislature wanted a larger “rainy day” fund as a hedge against bad times, and a spending cap so the state would not embark on programs it couldn’t afford in future years. Democrats argued that money properly spent now would save the state millions in the future and was a necessary investment. Then-Speaker Fabian Nuñez, also a Los Angeles Democrat, also from a district affected by the broken foster care system, went to bat for Bass’ plan and included it in the budget that Schwarzenegger signed.

Meanwhile, Californians were happy with their government. Largely because of a decent economy and a fairly easy budget year, the Legislature’s approval ratings soared. Schwarzenegger was easily reelected.

When the housing bubble burst, Schwarzenegger stepped up his demand for far-reaching budget reform to cap annual spending and mandate saving for the future. This page called it “budgetary Skynet,” a reference to the computer system that, in the “Terminator” movies, eliminated the human factor from defense decisions. “A better future for California will come when voters and elected officials begin to make tough choices,” we wrote, “not when they shrug their shoulders and relinquish their power to a budget machine.”

Bass then became speaker and had to preside over the dismantling of much of her good work on foster care. Soon to leave the Assembly for a seat in Congress (her election in November is all but certain in her heavily Democratic district), she hasn’t backed off her support for foster care reform. But she has come around on Schwarzenegger’s rainy-day fund.

“So much of what we did was undone” by the last several very bad budget years, Bass said recently. “I do think we need something to even out the budget from one year to another.”

The Times’ editorial page reluctantly joined Bass and other legislative leaders in backing Schwarzenegger’s May 2009 ballot measure that would have imposed an automated spending cap and a rainy-day fund. It failed to pass because it was packaged with tax increases that angry Californians were unprepared to accept.

Today, this page again asserts its support for the governor’s budget reform, this time putting aside our past reluctance. It’s unfortunate that automated budgeting is necessary. But it is necessary. The state must continue to invest in the social welfare of its people, but we must do it in accordance with California’s projected growth so that we do not repeatedly yank from the young, the elderly and the poor the very services that we provided only a year or two before.

There are, in theory, alternatives. A revamp of our tax system along the lines of the one produced by the Commission on the 21st Century Economy, for example, would be one way to smooth out the revenue peaks and valleys and make the state’s tax receipts more predictable from year to year by putting less emphasis on the income of corporations and the wealthy. But there is little widespread support for transferring the tax burden to middle-income earners. Allowing the Legislature to make budget decisions on a majority vote, instead of two-thirds, would force lawmakers and the majority party to stand behind their budgets. There’s a measure on the November ballot to do that, but there’s also a measure to expand the two-thirds requirement. Until California is ready to adopt widespread and rational governmental restructuring, it needs to change its budgeting practices.

There are downsides. The public can become impatient when the state is sitting on a large reserve. It happened in 1978, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown prudently socked away a huge reserve for expenses he saw coming in future years. Property owners were angry that their taxes were rising when the state had plenty of money, and the surplus became one of the factors that helped defund government with Proposition 13. In the 1990s, the state had enough money to roll back vehicle license fees. Gray Davis prudently raised them again, as the law contemplated, when the surplus disappeared — but that move helped get him recalled. Budget reform can put reserves for future years off limits for tax rebates as well as for spending.

This is Schwarzenegger’s last budget, and his last chance to push for a spending cap and a rainy-day fund. It’s the right time and the right goal. The Legislature should agree, and send budget reform to voters one more time.

Related posts:

1. In Sacramento, An Angry Exchange Over Child Welfare Budget Cuts
2. City Budget: Doom and Gloom
3. Reuters: “Schwarzenegger budget ax would fall heavily on poor”

A likely consequence of the San Francisco and California’s ever-growing pile of debt ($483 million and $19 billion respectively) to consider is the dampening effect that these insurmountable deficits could have on not just the services non-profits offer the Bay Area, but also on the capacity that our over-worked non-profits need to critically and candidly measure their work’s outcomes and community impact in a time of increasing need and decreasing budgets.

Because non-profits provide many social safety nets funded by City Hall, including substance abuse and mental health services that are being axed by the Mayor this year, it is extremely important that community-based programs have the capacity to self-improve, to find where clients may be  falling through the cracks,  and to prove the value of government and non-profit investment in the community.

Many people assume that we can do more good deeds if we just sustain and expand current services. But the fact is harsh: San Francisco vastly outspends other Californian cities as far as health and human services, yet we cannot seem to fundamentally solve many of our common social ills. There does not seem to be a lack of safety nets in San Francisco, but a lack of coordination and oversight between the multiple social institutions and networks vulnerable citizens must navigate–often on their own.

Of course the well-being of a sixteen-year old living without education, a family, or a home cannot be reduced to an institutional statistic, nor should his case worker  stress about her data reports more than her substantive practice. However, it is highly unlikely that there will be more or even sustained funding in the near future for the social services we now enjoy. Inter-agency coordination and evidence-based practice must replace duplication and inefficiency.  To adapt to the new reality, non-profits should set aside resources to determine what is really working for the Bay Area community and how to do more of it with less.

Related posts:

1. HEY First Impressions
2. Bay Budget Blues
3. San Francisco Saturated with Services–Some Have to Go

There’s not any fat in the state’s anorexic budget. There’s not even enough muscle to adequately animate some of California’s most vital moving parts. Some cuts we should be able to live with. Others, not so much. Valuable and worthy programs, including many that would have been regarded as essential under other circumstances, have been visited by the fiscal scalpel. As a state, we’re the poorer for it.

Some deserving programs are hanging on, albeit barely. One, which was being debated in the state Senate’s appropriations committee last week, provides funding for programs to help aged-out foster youth transition into the real world as independent, self-sustaining, tax-paying adults.

Yes, a social program. That’ll be a tough sell when the head-knocking of in-earnest budget negotiations really begins. It’ll be a tough sell even though it’s hard to find anyone who believes programs like the Transitional Housing Program for emancipated foster youth, or THP-Plus, is a waste of money.

It’s not. Weigh the cost against the value of putting an at-risk population on the tax rolls, and it’s a no-brainer.

“If we don’t do anything with these foster kids, we might as well just build more prisons,” said Randy Martin of Covenant Community Services, a Bakersfield-based foster care placement and management agency — one of 12 in Kern County that rely, in part, on government funding sources. “There’s this huge population of young people out there, and we’re their only safety net.”

Yet, THP-Plus was actually on the chopping block for a while, the first time since an early version of the program was created in 1998 that it has been so threatened. The January version of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget had eliminated funding altogether, a cut that would have hit 1,400 former foster youth living in the state’s transitional housing programs. Schwarzenegger pulled back that threat, but the program, now in 17 California counties including Kern, continues to hang in the balance.

AB 12, sponsored by Assemblyman Jim Beall Jr., D-San Jose, represents the Legislature’s lone hope that recent innovations in foster care can be preserved. AB 12, which would extend foster care transitional services to age 21, passed the Assembly on Jan. 27 and, last week, with supportive testimony from San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith, passed the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee; it’s now before the Appropriations Committee.

AB 12, the California Fostering Connections to Success Act, would keep intact the existing infrastructure for housing emancipated foster youth to the age of 21. The bill would also enable California to use federal funds to meet costs currently borne by the state and by counties.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office puts the annual cost of the program (which would be rolled out in stages over three years, 2012 to 2014) at $5 million to $41 million at full implementation. That’s a big range, but even at the high end of that estimate, it’s a good deal.

Giving foster youth the means to ease into society will cut unemployment, homelessness, teen pregnancy, welfare payouts and numerous other challenges — and statistics bear that out.

“The cost to the system in the future, in terms of incarceration, in terms of homelessness, is very high,” said Elena Acosta, the Kern County Department of Human Services’ assistant director for Child Protective Services.

The John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes reports, for example, that former foster youth were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested and 70 percent more likely to be incarcerated.

Only 2 percent of former foster-care youth attain bachelor’s degrees compared to 24 percent of the general population — but studies have found that 70 percent aspire to a college degree.

There’s the oft-cited 2009 study by the University of Washington’s School of Social Work: Helping manage foster youths’ transition to adulthood until the age of 21 returns $2.41 for every government dollar spent in California.

AB 12’s survival in the state senate doesn’t guarantee these programs will live on, however. The budget must still pass muster, and we know how that circus goes. But passage will mean that legislators will have had a recent refresher course on the obstacles that foster-care kids must overcome, and the value that post-age 18 subsidized housing and life-skills mentoring can hold.

That we’d choose to fund such programs says a lot about the value we place on a segment of society that, through no fault of its own, got the short end of the stick. They deserve a little more stick.

Contact the author: rprice@bakersfield.com

Related posts:

1. Former Foster Youth Are in Danger of Losing California Housing Support Services
2. Advocates concerned over proposed cuts to foster care transition services
3. New Study on Foster Care in California Finds Significant Changes Over Last Decade

Date: Monday, August 2, 2010
Time: 11a.m.-3p.m. (registration from 10-10:45a.m.)
Location: San Jose State University

California Youth Connection’s invites you to their (CYC) Annual Summer Policy and Leadership Conference’s Policy Presentation…..

The event, which is facilitated and hosted by the CYC members, will address the following topics: transitional services, higher education, permanency and budget. In addition, the youth will be discussing Budget Priorities, Implementation Strategies and Policy Recommendations. Attendees will have the opportunity to listen to recommendations by the youth, spend time strategizing and developing action steps, and collaborate and speak individually with these amazing young adults.

RSVP Here.

Related posts:

1. California Coalition for Youth hosts Taking Action Conference 2010
2. Human Services Network to Spearhead “New Realities 4″ Non-Profit Public Policy Conference (July 9)
3. State Policy – California Child Welfare Council and The Foster Youth Issues Forum

California State Capitol, Sacramento

[From the John Burton Foundation, July 1, 2010]

On June 22nd, AB 12 passed 4 to 0 out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Thank you Senators Corbett, Harman, Hancock and Leno for your support. From here, AB 12 will move to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where it will be heard in August.

Senate Appropriations Committee will be the biggest challenge yet for AB 12. Let’s give AB 12 the best shot possible by educating our elected officials about this important legislation. The John Burton Foundation will be holding a full day of meetings on Wednesday, August 4th at the State Capitol in Sacramento. If you have been waiting until crunch time to get involved, now is your time! To register for the day, click HERE. If you have any questions, please contact Sara Rhodes at sara@johnburtonfoundation.org or at 415-693-1326.

[AB 12 is a state version of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, which was signed into law in 2008, and opens up federal resources for states to extend foster care to specified individuals up to 21 years of age. Additionally, AB 12 will mandate California to seek federal finances for kinship guardianship assistance payments. For continued updates on AB12]

Related posts:

1. AB 12 Passes Human Services Committee!
2. Meet With Your State Legislators and Show Your Support for AB 12!
3. AB 12 Passes in the Assembly 72 to 0

San Francisco is generous, good-hearted and socially conscious. It is eager to help the disadvantaged and the poor. There’s just one flaw in our civic personality. Tough choices.We’d rather not make them.

Last Monday, a parade of hundreds of service organizations appeared before the Board of Supervisors, pleading for funding for their programs. These aren’t bad people and their programs to help the young, the drug-ravaged, and the homeless are well-intentioned.

But the hard truth is there are far too many service providers for this relatively small city. They duplicate efforts, they don’t have enough oversight, and they spend hundreds of millions of city dollars.

Now – and here’s the tough part – with the city facing a historic $483 million deficit, some of them are going to have to go. Or, as the San Francisco Community-Based Organizations Task Force put it in April 2009, they need to be “encouraged to identify their placement within the nonprofit life cycle, and contemplate the possibility of closure.”

Close service organizations? Let the howls of protest begin. But let’s take a hard-eyed look at this.

The city contracts with nearly 500 service organizations, spending roughly $500 million a year. In March 2009, the controller’s office presented a report that showed the city and county of San Francisco outspends Los Angeles County by a per capita 8-to-1 on substance abuse, provides three times the per capita amount of funding of San Mateo County on mental health, and subsidizes child and maternal health 31-to-1 compared to Sacramento County.

So it isn’t as if we are not addressing the problems. But every report, from the controller’s office, the Organizations Task Force, to the civil grand jury report on homelessness, comes up with the same conclusion – there needs to be a way to determine which groups are effective.

“We are the broker of service, we need to be responsible for the public dollars,” said Barbara Garcia, deputy director of health. “The city is going to have to have a statement of accountability.”

The motivation may be the budget deficit, but this is discussion that is long overdue. Holding nonprofits to measurable standards, and taking a hard look to see if they are duplicating efforts, is essential.

“It’s a hard conversation, but this is the right time to have it,” said Maria Su, director of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, which controls a budget of $82 million. “My sense is that we fund a lot of boutique programs. And I don’t believe our children are that boutique-y.”

DCYF is among the city departments that is requiring accountability benchmarks. It wants to see solid financial records, time cards and solid goals. And, like the Department of Public Health, they are going to demand that nonprofits get out and earn extra funding beyond what they get from the city.

“Some of these organizations have been totally dependent on city dollars for 20 years,” said Garcia, who used to work with a nonprofit focusing on migrant farmworkers. “I don’t care if they have to charge clients $5 for services.”

Tough talk, but let’s see what happens. Two years ago, Trent Rhorer, director of the Human Services Agency, went to the supervisors with a proposal to cut funding for a group home for foster kids. Rhorer had up-to-date studies and data that showed that foster children did much better in individual homes. A large proportion of group home residents ended up in prison.

The reaction was swift and harsh. Rhorer was lambasted and vilified, and the program was funded. Today, even supporters of the home admit Rhorer had a point.

But to cut the funding would have meant stepping up and making a tough, unpopular call. Nobody does that here unless they have to. Now they have to.

Related posts:

1. San Francisco’s Human Services – 2009 in Review
2. Impact of state budget on San Francisco, and next steps with the city budget
3. San Francisco Budget Update

Last August, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut $80 million from the state’s general fund that was meant for child welfare services, such as foster care, services for youth aging out of the system, and efforts to decrease social worker caseloads. That number grows to $133 million if you count the federal matching funds that could vanish as a result of the veto, thus representing a 10 percent cut of the overall budget.

In a rare display of legislative bipartisanship, both houses have since restored the funding through budget subcommittee actions. But it remains to be seen whether the governor will veto the money again or accept the legislature’s restoration of funds.

Which reminds me: I watched a disturbing DVD recently. In it, members of a coalition called Protect Our Children, Protect Our Future gather in a room at the state capitol to discuss the governor’s child welfare veto with Dave Weiher, legislative director for Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, who is vice chair of the Assembly budget committee. The coalition consists of 350 organizations and individuals — social workers, children’s agencies, families trying to keep their kids out of the system — who are worried about the long-term social and economic consequences of chopping 10 percent of California’s child welfare services. They say that investing in child welfare now saves money later on expensive services like welfare, adult mental health and incarceration.

The video of the April meeting shows with uncommon clarity the extent to which Sacramento politicians seem to operate in a parallel universe to those tasked with helping our most vulnerable citizens. Weiher, in an interview this week, said it was “the most contentious meeting I’ve ever been in” in his 22 years in politics. He acknowledged that he could have been more graceful, but insists he was just trying to help.

Here’s a highlight reel, with annotations:

“I’m telling you, folks,” Weiher says in the video, “if you want to help foster youth, you’ve got to get jobs in California.”

(Confused expressions on faces all around the room.)

“You can create a pro-business climate in California so that companies want to move here,” Weiher continues.

“And how do we do that?” a woman asks.

“When you go office to office [in the capitol],” Weiher says, “say ‘please promote pro-business, pro-job regulation in California’. … It’s that simple.”

(Okay, his point is that the way to fund state programs for youth is for child welfare workers to focus their lobbying power on pro-business interests in order to generate income and sales tax revenue that can in turn pay for services for children. But that sounds a bit outside the realm of expertise of social workers or grandparents who are busy raising other people’s children.)

“We have to look at the entire picture,” Weiher goes on, adding that his office is overburdened with diverse constituent requests. “We can’t look at one little line item and say, ‘this is what we’re going to do.’”

(Referring to the 68,000 kids in California’s child welfare system as a “little line item” probably isn’t the best way to break the ice at a meeting with social workers and foster youth.)

“My boss cares about education, cares about public safety—” Weiher says.

Here he is interrupted by a woman who says, “That’s lip service.” When the comment draws applause, Weiher turns to one clapping woman and says:

“Please. Are you that simpleminded that that brings applause?”

(Talking down to citizens who actually want to participate in their state’s government is bad. But insulting the intelligence of people who traveled on their own dime to speak up for a largely voiceless population is worse.)

“I’m trying to fix the problem, ma’am,” he says to another woman, reiterating his assertion that until we lure more business to California, foster kids might have to go without. “And you’re saying, ‘give me more money.’”

(That’s exactly what she was saying. By that point, though, several people in the room had given up. Some left, muttering, “We’re through here,” and, “You’re unbelievable.”)

Just before the deadline for this column, I got a call from Weiher, whom I had been trying to reach for a week, and we spoke for an hour.

“I’m trying with all my heart to help these people,” he said. “I know they’re frustrated. I go in there knowing that all they want to hear is that we’re going to protect their programs.”

He’s aware that word of mouth about the meeting has been negative, but said he was trying to educate the coalition members about how they can best achieve their goals in Sacramento.

“My whole point in taking that tack is to help them be doubly effective,” he said. “I think I’m doing them the greatest favor in the world. … There’s not just a bunch of money in the pot and if you tell a good story you get some.”

Weiher then brought up his “simpleminded” comment before I’d had a chance to mention it. He admitted to being upset by the woman’s remark that he was just paying the coalition lip service, and frustrated when people applauded.

“Where does this woman get off saying ‘lip service’?” he said. “I’m pointing out the reality to them. How is that lip service?”

I also talked with coalition leader Frank Mecca on the phone. He told me that right after the April meeting, Nielsen heard about Weiher’s comments and was clearly troubled by them. Within an hour, Mecca said, Nielsen had his chief of staff reconvene some coalition members and met personally to apologize and assure them that Weiher’s comments did not reflect his commitment to providing youth services. Mecca also told me that Nielsen has demonstrated strong support for the restoration of child welfare funding and is working closely with the coalition.

With Nielsen and other legislators working to better fund child welfare, maybe the governor should have a look at the video of the April meeting before he decides whether to veto that money again—because the ending is pretty scary.

A woman who has managed to keep her grandchildren out of foster care with the help of state resources asks Weiher if there’s a back-up plan for kids if the funding dries up. After all, she says, the kids and their needs are not going away.

“None of this goes away,” Weiher tells her. “Education issues don’t go away, public safety issues don’t go away, health and human services issues don’t go away. Nothing goes away, folks.”

If we don’t invest in our kids now, he could be right.

Related posts:

1. HEY Attends Rally to Restore Cuts to Child Welfare Services
2. Child Welfare Budget Cuts – September 2009
3. Advocates concerned over proposed cuts to foster care transition services

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to cut $80 million from the state’s child welfare services, which local advocates reported would result in the loss of another $53.5 million.

Those kinds of cuts could hurt the Transitional Housing Program for Emancipated Foster/Probation Youth (THP-Plus). Several years ago the California Department of Social Services conducted a state survey on youth housing issues for emancipated foster youth. The agency’s research found that 65 percent of the 4,355 youth who emancipated from foster care during the 2000-01 fiscal years were in need of safe and affordable housing.

In 2002, the state Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1119 to assist counties in their efforts to provide housing for this population, which resulted in the creation of the THP-Plus program, the California Department of Social Services reported. Another piece of legislation, Assembly Bill 824, passed in 2005, raised the age limit for participating in a THP-Plus program to age 24.

The state reported that 17 counties statewide – including Lake, which joined the program in 2008 – now participate in THP-Plus, with 100 housing programs established statewide to serve emancipated youth and foster children.

But this year, THP-Plus has been on the chopping block for the first time, with funding proposed to be eliminated altogether in the governor’s January budget, according Patti Gorden, special projects coordinator with Redwood Children’s Services Inc. in Lake and Mendocino counties.

Schwarzenegger’s original cuts would have impacted 1,400 former foster youth living in the state’s transitional housing program, Gorden said.

That proposal was pulled back, but Gorden said the THP-Plus program’s future status still isn’t certain.

Two local young people – part of the nearly one dozen in Lake and Mendocino counties who rely on the program – illustrate the program’s importance and the safety net it offers, as well as its goal to help young people transition off of government funding.

One is Tamara Davidson, 18, who entered the program on March 1 with her new baby daughter, and Lawrence Lazaro of Ukiah, who turned 21 not long after he left the program this spring.

Davidson’s mother died when she was 14, leaving behind five children.

Noting that she was “out of control,” Davidson said she went through “many, many” foster homes. She was released from foster care when she turned 18 last August, and afterward had been living around Hidden Valley Lake and Clearlake with her baby daughter, born in December.

The young mother had been “couch surfing” and sleeping in her car, and trying to get her diploma so she could get a job.

Then she came into the program. “They helped me right away, actually,” Davidson said.

Gorden said the program provides young people like Davidson and Lazaro with a certain amount of money each month for rent, food and utilities.

Over the 24 months of the program the young people are required to pay more of their own way, gradually removing their dependence on the program’s resources. Deanna Hamel, THP-Plus coordinator for Redwood Children’s Services, said the goal is to get the young people out on their own.

“I feel safer now,” Davidson said, who is thinking about studying to become a nurse.

In Lazaro’s case, he entered the program at age 16, entering himself into foster care in Lake County, moving from his home in Willits.

He said his mother had been on welfare her entire life, and wasn’t interested in moving up and out of the system.

Lazaro lived in dismal conditions, with seven families members occupying a rundown travel trailer in a Willits trailer park.

He didn’t go to school – he stopped attending in the ninth grade and went on independent study – he had few clothes and he had watched as many young men his age went straight to jail.

Lazaro said his friends were mostly drug users; one of them told him one day “not to fall off of a cliff.”

Originally, he had called authorities for help for his mother, who was panhandling. “I really just wasn’t in a good place at all” with his family, he said.

Lazaro ended up placing himself voluntarily into foster care, where he formed bonds with his foster families. He attended Upper Lake High School before transferring to Ukiah High.

At age 17, he got into the Transitional Housing Placement Program – or THPP – when he moved to Ukiah. When he turned 18, he went into THP-Plus, where he received additional help and mentoring so he could learn to live on his own, receiving job search and resume building techniques, and learning scheduling.

“They were teaching me to be independent,” he said.

Lazaro went on to get two different part-time jobs and has mentored at summer camps. He said he wants to get his associate’s degree and become a case manager with Redwood Children’s Services.

“I’m a really strong person now,” he said, adding, “It’s really an amazing thing that happened.”

He even traveled to Sacramento earlier this year to speak to North Coast Assemblyman Wes Chesbro about preserving the THP-Plus program.

“I know I have a bright future because of the program,” he said.

“I think it would be horrible” if the program were cut, said Davidson.

THP-Plus program staff relate other stories of young people who, had it not been for the program, wouldn’t have been able to finish school or otherwise have a safe place to call home.

“If they do away with this program, we have nowhere for these youth to go,” said Gorden.

Redwood Children’s Services cites studies including one that showed that only 10.8 percent of youth who “age out” of the foster care system without continued support will complete high school, which is a number that’s less than half the rate for their peers of the same age and race. In addition, only 2 percent of that group would ever graduate from college.

The John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes reported that former foster youth were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested and 70 percent more likely to be incarcerated.

Advocates also point to a 2009 study conducted by the University of Washington’s School of Social Work, which found that caring for young adults until the age of 21 will represent a return of $2.40 on every government dollar spent in California.

Gorden said there is a hopeful piece of news on the horizon in the form of AB 12, the California Fostering Connections Act.

AB 12 – which would begin no later than July 1, 2011 – would and extend foster youth support to the age of 21, according to the bill’s language.

Introduced in October 2008 by Assembly members Jim Beall Jr. and Karen Bass, the two-year bill continues to work its way through the Legislature.

It’s set to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 22, according to the State Legislative Counsel.

Related posts:

1. Marina Residents Concerned Over Foster Care Project
2. STATE POLICY – Governor’s Proposed Budget for FY 2009-10: THP-Plus Holds Steady
3. Conference Convenes to Maximize Services for Transition-Aged Youth (July 8)

In its reduction of the average time that a foster child stays in state custody, its increase in the number of timely and loving adoptions, and its funding for kin-GAP legal guardianships, the California government has been able to greatly reduce the number of children in our foster care system over the last ten years. Though this accomplishment warrants a ‘congrats’ to the foster care system, this phenomenon could not have been possible without the preventative services for troubled families (substance abuse treatments, mental health services, parental support, etc.) that helped the government avoid removing so many children from the custody of their family in the first place.

Given the proposed budget shortfalls from city hall to Sacramento this coming fiscal year, such substance abuse and mental health services, included in a long list of lost funds to health and social services, will inevitably take a substantial blow. For example, though the new city budget funds the baseline of children services at the required level, it does not comply with the Treatment on Demand initiative, which requires that the City not reduce funding or substance abuse treatment slots as long as there is unmet need (which there undoubtedly is).

Youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood who rely on these health services, and especially the youth who will have to enter foster care because her family could not get the necessary substance abuse treatments, will be hurt this year. To continue the progress we’ve made in the reduction of Californian children in foster care over the last decade, and in the face of never ending city and state deficits, we need to find new and creative ways to continue funding the services that have worked best for California youth in the past and have the most promise for the youth of the future. California has done so much for its current and former foster youthp; now’s not the time to start cutting corners.

Related posts:

1. Bayview Connect 2010 is a Success!!
2. A New Reality: Doing More With Less
3. San Francisco Budget Update