The Assembly and the Senate Budget Committees have been busy closing items proposed by the Governor in his May Revise proposal. One of the first items that the two houses completed work on was to reject the Governor's controversial proposal to eliminate CalWORKs. Twice in the last week low income families, providers, counties and advocates for the poor have packed budget hearings in opposition to eliminating CalWORKs. Testimony in the Senate Committee went on over three hours as families told the committee what would happen if they lost their CalWORKs or child care

In addition to preserving CalWORKs, the committees rejected the Governor's proposals to eliminate the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI), the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP), the Recent Non-Citizen Entrants program ((RNE) and child care programs at the Department of Education. Both houses also rejected the proposed 15.7 percent cut to the CalWORKs grant and cutting SSI for individuals by $15 a month to the federal minimum.

Advocates testified that cutting CalWORKs was not only immoral but fiscally imprudent. CalWORKs is a lifeline of hope for more than 500,000 extremely poor families in California and more than one million children. The cash assistance helps keep a roof over families heads and the welfare to work program helps families increase their income while participating in education to improve their employability.

The elimination of the program though would be a major fiscal loser for California taxpayers. While the state would save $1.2 billion by eliminating CalWORKs, it would cost county governments $1.9 billion when CalWORKs families applied for and receive General Relief/Assistance payments. But not only would it cost taxpayers more than current law but the state would sacrifice more than $4 billion in federal TANF and TANF ECF funds.

Advocates were pleased that the committees chose to act quickly to reject the Governor's CalWORKs elimination. In addition to the needless worry for families created by the proposal, the mere existence of this proposal was beginning to fray the infrastructure developed to manage the CalWORKs program. Administrators at Long Beach Community College took the alarming step of proposing to shut down the CalWORKs program for 1,800 students on July 1. At the hearings many child care providers warned that they would go out of business if contracts are not extended soon for the 2010-11 year.

The Budget Committees are attempting to complete action on the remaining portions of the budget this week so that they can begin the two house conference committee process next week. Because the two houses took identical actions to reject CalWORKs, CAPI, CFAP and the other proposals they are techincally not conference items. But with a $18 billion hole still to fill no proposal is ever dead. WCLP and other advocates will continue to oppose these poorly conceived proposals.