I've just received word that US District Judge Claudia Wilken has issued a preliminary injunction against the IHSS (in-home support services) cuts that were supposed to go into effect on November 1.
The suit was brought by SEIU four disability rights groups, UDW and three SEIU locals in response to the summer budget cuts. The California Disability Community Action Network has more information about the lawsuit. More details coming.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken issued the preliminary injunction. In making the decision, she found that a written notice she stopped the state from sending out last week would have been constitutionally inadequate - too hard to understand, and giving too little time for appeals. She also found that the plaintiffs - advocates for disabled and elderly Californians, along with several labor unions - are likely to be able to prove at trial that the state was using inadequate standards to determine whose services would be cut. (CCT 10/19/09)
This in no way saves these cuts from going forward, it simply says that the methods that the state was going to use to make the cuts was all sorts of screwy. The "functional index" was going to be used to determine who gets what level of services, but many people would be cut off without really understanding what was happening. This is a vulnerable population, and to set them loose without a clear understanding of what is going on is even more unconscionable than the original cuts themselves.
Gov. Schwarzenegger's budget butchery cuts services from IHSS recipients. After November 1, 2009, people with an overall functional index score below 2 will no longer qualify for IHSS. People who receive a functional index ranking below 4 for any domestic service will no longer receive that particular service.
Functional index ranking is how the county determines the level of needs people have. As part of the assessment for services, the county determines the person's ability to complete certain tasks, such as housework, laundry, shopping and errands, meal preparation and cleanup, eating, bathing and grooming. Also they assess the person's control over respiration, memory, bowel, bladder, orientation and judgment.
Now, in addition to assessing need, the "functional ranking system" is being used to take away services from the people that need them. Let's take, for example, an individual who has a "3" ranking for sweeping floors, a "4'' for changing bed linens, and a "5" for cleaning bathrooms. Under the new law, the individual would no longer receive service for sweeping floors because the ranking for this service is "3" and therefore too low. The individual would continue to receive service for changing bed linens and cleaning bathrooms.
There is also a "functional index score" (as opposed to the functional ranking index just mentioned) which is now being used as a line drawn to sever services from those who need them. After a social worker assesses a person's needs, the county gives a "functional index rank from "1" to "6" for each of the tasks. This ranking is then averaged out. The result is called the "functional index score." Effective November 1, 2009, the new law eliminates IHSS services entirely for individuals with a functional index score below level 2.
On October 1, 2009, Disability Rights California and other organizations filed a lawsuit to stop these cuts. We are hopeful and hard at work to reverse this dark ideology as soon as possible.
This narrow vision couldn't come at a worse time. At a time when the State should be preparing for growth nothing is being done to prepare for the exponential rate of growth in the populations of people who rely on these services to live from day to day. Instead of alleviating the pressures that the future burdens us with, the Governor shoots holes in the bucket that he asks us to fill.
However, we are happy to say that persons who receive protective supervision or paramedical services will not have their IHSS services cut regardless of their function index rankings or score.
Even before they are instituted, the IHSS cuts have been a debacle and are really proving to be a disaster. And, with that being the case, senior and disabled groups really had no choice but to sue, alleging that the cuts violate federal disability laws.
Alleging violations of federal disability rights laws, the organizations are challenging how California state welfare directors have decided to select who will be dropped from services because of state budget cuts. The groups are asking for a hearing before a judge as soon as next week to seek a preliminary injunction before the state starts mailing notices in mid-October to IHSS recipients informing them that they will be affected by cuts. (SacBee 10/01/09)
Of course, the IHSS cuts are really only one of very many cuts that are at once both tragic and possibly violating the letter and/or the spirit of federal requirements.
Robert Cruickshank pretty well covers the disaster that will be the upcoming budget "deal" between legislative Democrats and Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the way, this is BEFORE the Yacht Party tries to enact a few more goodies for the privilege of letting Democrats vote for $26 billion in cuts, gimmicks and raids on local government. We'll see a big sigh of relief from lawmakers over the next few days that will be wholly unwarranted.
Particularly galling is the targeting of city and county budgets to cover the state gap. By siphoning off almost $1 billion in gas tax funds slated for cities and counties, not one pothole in California will get filled this year. With the loss of $1.7 billion in redevlopment funds, not one project like affordable housing will get initiated. And by taking $1.3 billion in local property taxes, lots of city and county employees, particularly in public safety, will end up out of work. It's really robbery on a pretty grand scale, and it will offset any economic recovery through stimulus funding throughout the state.
One of the major consequences of this cuts-only budget will be, paradoxically, higher costs for individuals and the state. When you eliminate or severely restrict social services programs, those individuals who rely on them will have to go elsewhere for those services. The alternatives are more expensive for everyone.
Irene Steinlage has trouble walking, getting dressed, making her bed, taking a bath. She has stayed in her Folsom home with the help of a health aide, one that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says the state can no longer afford.
The governor's plan to take away such care is meant to save money. But it could end up costing California more by forcing the 85-year-old, who has Parkinson's, osteoporosis and other ailments -- and thousands like her -- into nursing homes.
"I couldn't possibly afford a nursing home," Steinlage said. So the state could be saddled with a Medi-Cal tab that is triple the cost of her home care worker, who receives $10.40 an hour five days a week [...]
Others say the experience of governments that have closed gaping deficits with deep program cuts suggests that the price of doing so is hefty.
"It's pay now or pay later," said Nicholas Freudenberg, who co-wrote a study of the long-term effects of service reductions made in the aftermath of New York City's fiscal crisis of 1975.
His 2006 study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that less than $10 billion in cuts to healthcare, education and law enforcement in New York City over four years led to at least $54 billion in additional costs over a 20-year period, using 2004 dollars and adjusted for inflation. Consequences included higher rates of HIV, a worsened tuberculosis epidemic and a spike in homicides.
"Those potential epidemics that are being seeded by Gov. Schwarzenegger's cuts will not come in his term or the terms of people who are making these decisions," Freudenberg said. "It will be several years down the line."
The sick thing is that the Governor, and maybe even some in the Yacht Party, know this. The consequences of program cuts are easily seen. Eliminating the Poison Control System, for example, means that people calling the emergency number (many of whom don't need to see a doctor based on poison accidentally swallowed) will instead go to the ER, and many of those visits will be from people on Medi-Cal, leading to higher costs. Cutting adult day care will send many into nursing homes, at a higher cost to the state. Losing Cal Works welfare funding will send children into foster care, at a higher cost. Cutting the meager drug treatment and vocational training in prisons almost assures an even higher recidivism rate, at a higher cost.
This is not a difficult calculation to make. We fund social services programs not only because we have an obligation in a developed society not to see people dying on the street, but because we can create programs that get people back to self-sufficiency at a lower overall cost. There is only one reason not to fund such programs - because an arrogant and entitled right wing refuses to fund these government obligations in the short term, preferring apparently to pay more in the long term. There has been enough money in the last few budgets to produce massive corporate tax cuts, but not enough to get someone with a chemical dependency the treatment he or she needs. There's been enough money to protect California's unique status as the only oil-producing state not to charge corporations for taking our natural resources out of the ground, but not enough to provide long-term care services that relieve the burden of nursing home funding over the long term. There's enough money to keep in place useless enterprise zones that create nothing but tax giveaways, but not enough to keep the state from becoming the first in the nation to put poor kids on a waiting list for affordable health insurance.
We hear about the "generous social services programs" in California that simply had to be cut, but they've been reduced to the point where they are almost unanimously the worst in the nation. That depresses the business climate, that moves bodies out of the state, that alienates the public. And Arnold Schwarzenegger knows this, and he did it anyway, to keep a promise to what little of his base he has left.
Ultimately, this system isn't designed to produce good budgets. Without a media that cares, no amount of activism or public pressure can be brought to bear on a shameless and unaccountable minority. If you need proof of the need for a complete rethinking of how to structure government in California in the 21st century, look at the last seven months.
Meetings of the Big Five lasted late into the night, and reports are that a deal is very close. Now, that deal won't be any good. The secretive Big Five process, which Democrats actually tried to counteract with 30 hours of public meetings, ends up leading to a deal that nobody reads and gets pushed through in the dead of night. And the very structure of the California system, with its super-majority requirements, will never yield a good deal for anyone but the well-connected.
Any final deal is expected to include some of the sharpest cutbacks in government services the state has experienced. Programs that have not been cut deeply in years are likely to shrink considerably, with tens of thousands of Californians losing access to programs they have relied on. Some programs may be wiped out entirely. Large numbers of low-income Californians receiving healthcare through the Medi-Cal program are expected to be moved into managed care, and thousands of seniors who receive home healthcare would lose it.
That said, it looks as if the Governor will lose on many of his priorities. He'll lay back with a stogie in his Jacuzzi anyway, but he's not going to get everything he wants. For instance, a proposal to cut public employee pensions has been scrapped.
California will not impose a two-tier pension system promising lower benefits to future state workers as part of any wide-ranging deal to solve its $26.3 billion budget shortfall, The Bee has learned.
The controversial proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been shelved in budget talks, but options for cutting pension costs are expected to be discussed again in coming months.
I'd expect that to come up again, but it should not have been wedged into a budget deal when it would offer almost no short-term fiscal benefit.
A federal judge on Monday ordered California to pay In-Home Supportive Services workers up to $12.10 per hour in wages and benefits immediately, suggesting the state had dragged its feet in response to her earlier injunction.
California lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to drop the state's contribution to IHSS wages and benefits to $10.10 per hour as part of their February budget deal.
In a lawsuit filed by the Service Employees International Union, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland ruled last month that the state did not analyze the impacts of the wage cut before approving it, running afoul of federal law. She blocked the wage drop to $10.10 that was supposed to take effect July 1.
This saved a pittance of money relative to the overall budget gap, around $100 million, and, you know, violated federal law.
As I speculated yesterday, the Governor's foregrounding of "no new taxes" in his TV ad, a point already conceded by Democrats, was an effort to claim victory on something as the rest of his shock-doctrine agenda goes down in flames. We'll see if the anti-fraud measures stay in there as well.
As I said, this is going to be a horrible budget deal, and under the current system there can be almost nothing else. But I don't think the IOU issuance had the desired effect for the Governor. He ended up having to play defense because his indifference to the state's plight was seen as cruel. And just like in 1992, the refusal of bailed-out banks to honor the IOUs led almost immediately to marathon talks arriving at a solution.
Arnold could have avoided all this and saved the state billions of dollars, with almost no difference in the final result.
That's what happens you are a really big superstar. You get to make up your own facts and reality as you go. It's a really convenient super power, and even more super when people will simply write what you say down into pixels and ink. Specifically, the Governator has decided that "fraud" is responsible for 25% of IHSS (in-home support services) expenses. This despite earlier failing to fund inspectors to review IHSS.
However, Asm. Noreen Evans is calling him out. Specifically, she points to a 2008 admistration audit that failed to show fraud anywhere near those kind of levels.
"It's disappointing to see the governor making up 'facts' to suit his agenda," said Evans. "According to his own administration, just 1% of IHSS cases involve fraud. The governor should not try to criminalize seniors and the disabled in order to close our budget gap."
"The governor has been unable to produce evidence to support his claim that 25% of IHSS costs are due to fraud," added Evans. "In fact, this is just another proposal to gut the IHSS program using fraud as a fig leaf. Contrary to the governor's unsupported assertions, this recent audit is an unbiased analysis of fraud in IHSS and provides the best projection for any potential budget savings through reforms geared to reduce fraud."
But, in the end, this is more of the same from Arnold, who is willing to use any means necessary, including turning a bunch of disabled Californians upside down, to score a point in negotiation. However, this time it is backfiring upon him as it becomes increasingly clear that this Mr. Universe has no clothes.
As the Governor has tried to hijack the budget crisis to serve his own ends of punishing union workers and shredding the social services net, over the last couple days we've seen Democrats fighting back. For example, Dean Florez surgically took apart the Governor's idiotic smear attempt on legislators for doing their job of legislation. Considering that the Governor has never invited all 120 lawmakers into his smoking tent for a pow-wow, I think there's room for multitasking here. But understanding that would involve basic knowledge about how government works, as Florez said:
Assembly bill 606 creates a commission to serve the marketing interests of the blueberry industry. Another bill defines "honey" to mean the natural food product resulting from the harvest of nectar by honey bees, and a third bill adopts regulations establishing definitions and standards for 100-percent pomegranate juice.
"Look, we're pro-condiment, we're pro-fruit, but the focus needs to be on the budget crisis," McLear said.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Fresno) called Governor Schwarzenegger's criticism "childish" and said he is fed up.
"The governor's turned from an action hero into just another politician," Senator Florez said. "He should really, really take a course on fundamental government on how the legislature works."
"The fact that he doesn't understand these things worries me," he added.
Asm. Nancy Skinner held a press event with small business owners, again using the imagery of Arnold Antionette smoking a stogie in his Jacuzzi to contrast with the state's struggles:
Skinner called a news conference at the corner of Solano Avenue and The Alameda in Berkeley, outside the vacant storefront formerly occupied by A Child's Place. Near her podium was a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger with a cigar in his mouth, with the headline "While the state drowns in IOUs ARNOLD DOESN'T CARE" and featuring a quotation from this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine article on the governor's method of coping with the stress of the budget crisis: "I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight. I'm going to lay back with a stogie."
Skinner said that's pretty cheeky talk for a governor who nixed bills that would've helped solve the state's cash crisis, avoided the need for the IOUs now going out and kept the deficit from growing by another several billion dollars. And it's particularly distasteful, she said, to small businesses that are struggling through this recession even as Schwarzenegger proudly talks about vetoing a plan to collect sales tax from large online retailers doing business through California-based affiliates.
You can debate AB 178, the plan to collect sales tax on affiliate sales (I don't sell enough in affiliate sales to have much skin in the game, but there are decent arguments on both sides), but aligning with small business to attack a supposedly business-friendly Governor has good optics.
For the wonks, the Assembly produced an analysis of the Governor's so-called "reform" agenda, showing that most of it would be completely irrelevant to the current budget year, and all of it uses math that magically eliminates implementation costs but assumes outrageously oversized savings years down the road. These are cuts to social services pretending to be reform. I guess it's a step up from completely eliminating programs like CalWorks, but it's fundamentally dishonest.
"I've never liked when people pick on the poor because they haven't got the ability to fight back," said John Burton, the state Democratic Party chairman and former Senate leader known as a fierce advocate for the poor. "It's a Republican syndrome. It isn't tough for Republicans to beat up on poor people. When finances are terrible, they go after the poor and blame the poor. Republicans constantly use that and don't worry about all the benefits government gives to businesses." [...]
Welfare advocates countered that nearly two-thirds of recipients are working or participating in training, and that half are making some kind of income. They also said that the governor's own May revised budget proposal estimated an annual savings of $100 million with that reform.
"He's reinforcing negative stereotypes and scapegoating people for the failure of his own administration," said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. "It's a reflection of a bully mentality, to go after the problems of struggling families when he doesn't get his way. The last thing those families need is to have a powerful figure accuse them of fraud, of not trying."
Furthermore, the CA Democratic Party has collected budget horror stories to highlight the human cost of the crisis. Here's one picked at random:
I am on Social Security Disability and with the amounts allowed to get SSI having been cut, it has also cut my income. Also, my medical coverage is being hit as well as so many of the social programs all of us depend on. Fortunately, I am not homeless yet, but it is a good possibility. I just do not understand how you could make all Californians suffer, especially those of us who are very low income, in favor of giving a huge tax break to oil and tobacco. This is not just or right and I believe that the solution is to sign the compromise bill, and tax the big corporations that are not now paying their fair share! - Christine, Victorville
The structural barriers in the state are so high that I'm not sure any of this can work. One thing is certain, however - this aggressive strategy creates energy in the grassroots, inspires changes to the system and can leverage public opinion far better than desperately seeking some compromise behind closed doors.
Peter Schrag is one of the few columnists left in this state who consistently makes sense, and today he attacks that silly NYTimes article about California, in particular the elements of conventional wisdom:
In his passing references to California's serious issues, many of which have major implications for the nation as a whole, Leibovich collects pieces of the conventional wisdom, even when, as in his facile summary of the causes of gridlock in Sacramento, it's wrong. Since Democrats have again and again agreed to multi-billion dollar cuts, it is not, as he thinks, just a matter of "'no more taxes' (Republicans) and 'no more cuts' (Democrats)."
And while Jerry Brown, in his prior tenure as governor was indeed labeled "Governor Moonbeam" (by a Chicago columnist) for his space proposals, as Leibovich says, the label applied much more broadly to his inattention to the daily duties of his office and, most particularly to his dithering while the forces that produced Proposition 13 began to roll.
Brown later acknowledged that he didn't have the attention span to focus on the property tax reforms that were then so urgently needed to avert the revolt of 1978. But to this day, almost no one has said much of Brown's role in creating the anti-government climate and resentments that helped fuel the Proposition 13 drive.
It was the Brown, echoing much of the 1970s counter-culture, who, as much as anyone, was poor-mouthing the schools and universities as failing their students and who threatened to cut their funding if they didn't shape up. It is Brown who spent most of his political career savaging politics and politicians, even as he ran for yet another office. Now this is the guy who wants to be governor again. But Leibovich doesn't tell his readers that long history. Maybe he doesn't know it.
The line about how those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it can be inserted here. But Schrag hits on the most important failing of the article, and indeed of a good chunk of the political media here in California - they airbrush out the people who suffer for the failures of the politicians.
Where are California and the people who are feeling the pain - the school kids and teachers in hopelessly underfunded schools, the children who are losing their health care, the minimum-wage working mothers struggling to pay their child care, the students who are losing their university grants? Is all this really about nothing?
To far too many, the answer is yes. It's politics as theater, as a sporting event, where winners and losers are checked on a board, and whether or not a leader will keep their position is made the story rather than the principles he or she represents. And yet it's not Governor Hot Tubs and Stogies who will feel the pain of an economic downturn and massive budget cuts, nor well-heeled consultants or columnists who make up the scorecards. It's people.
People like the students in the Cal State system who may see their fees raised 20%, just months after a 10% hike approved in May. This will effectively block higher education for a non-trivial number of students, as will proposed enrollment reductions of 32,000 students.
People like LA County homeowners who have defaulted at twice the rate in May as they have in the previous month, as a foreclosure backlog builds up due to various moratoriums and an increase in repossessed homes entering the market.
People like IOU holders who may have to turn to check-cashing stores to get less-than-full value for their registered warrants after Friday, when most major banks (who have all been bailed out by the federal government, by the way) stop the exchange of the notes.
And people like the elderly, disabled and blind, who rely on the in-home support services that the Governor is trying to illegally cut in contravention of a contempt-of-court citation, at least in Fresno.
These are the great unmentioned in this California crisis, the people who Dan Walters tries to smear in his column today by turning every Democratic concern for the impacts of policy as a sellout to "public employee unions." Behind those unions are workers, and the people they serve need the help the provide, in many cases, simply to survive. But it would be too dangerous to Walters' beautiful mind to consider those faces, so he chooses to make political hay out of the violation of people.
Mr. Schrag's latest screed is a good example of why politics in Sacramento is so dis-functional. Instead of trying to find the truth in the Leibovich article, he mocks both the writer and each of the subjects. In recent years, Schrag has become increasingly bitter. That's very sad because he once was an open-minded person with real insight into the predicaments of modern society. Finally, his memory is not serving him well regarding Propistion 13 and the factors that constituted the ethos of that period. In fact, there was a long and hard fought battle to get property tax relief that got all the way to the state Senate but foundered just short of the necessary two thirds vote. There is much to say about government, schools and taxation in California. But to get anywhere it requires a degree of empathy and engagement with opposing perspectives that no longer seems congenial to Mr. Schrag.
As the budget talks stall, let's bore in on what new items the Governor has recently proposed. Out of nowhere last week, he called for policy changes as a condition for agreeing to covering the full budget deficit. He can call them budget-related, or part of the "reform" agenda, but that's a lie. He added new issues into the negotiations, and Karen Bass was right to call him out for it.
Among those new items was this call to "root out fraud" in several programs, including IHSS, Cal-Works and Medi-Cal. The Governor claims that implementing programs to end this fraud would save the state $500 million dollars a year - meaning it would take 14-16 years for this program fix to cover the wasted money caused by his intransigence in refusing the stop-gap fix last week, which lead to the issuance of IOUs. On top of that, those numbers are overstated, and changing eligibility standards is a complex, costly process that will neither improve customer service or even reduce an already-low error rate.
The Governor's response to these comments is that Democrats are somehow protecting union allies and the status quo. If that's the case, what to make of this fact:
In April of THIS YEAR, Democrat Bonnie Lowenthal introduced AB682, which would investigate fraud in the IHSS program. Here's the analysis of the bill:
1) Requires that, beginning January 1, 2010, DSS dedicate two positions to evaluate implementation of five specific anti-fraud provisions of the Welfare and Institutions Code related to the IHSS program and authorizes DSS to fill the positions either by using existing resources or, if an appropriation is provided for that purpose, by adding new positions.
2) Requires DSS, in consultation with the state Department of Health Care Services, the district attorney in the county with the largest caseload, and stakeholders, including IHSS consumers and providers, to provide a report to the Legislature by December 31, 2010, which shall do all of the following with respect to IHSS-related fraud:
a) Identify the magnitude of fraud in terms of the total dollars inappropriately spent or removed from the program, and the number of consumers harmed or placed at risk of harm as a result of fraudulent activity, through instances resulting in a fraud conviction between January 1, 2005 and January 1, 2010;
b) Identify the number of people involved in fraud for each of the following categories: IHSS providers, IHSS consumers, state workers, county workers, and others. In the case of "others," the report shall describe the function of the persons committing fraud with specificity but without revealing personal identifying information; and,
c) Provide recommendations on the best means to combat IHSS fraud.
It may interest you to know how the Assembly voted on the bill. In the Human Services Committee, the Democrats voted yes, the Republicans NO. In Appropriations, all Democrats voted yes, all Republicans NO. The final floor vote went 49-28, with three abstentions. EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTED NO except for Paul Cook, who abstained.
The ostensible reason for the Yacht Party united front against the bill? It costs $350,000 to hire two new employees at the Department of Social Services, and give them a budget to look into fraud at the IHSS. To pursue fraud that the Governor says would save the state $500 million a year.
This is basically what you do in government. You learn of a problem, you study it, and then you implement potential fixes for the problem. IHSS fraud was brought up as a problem in April, and Bonnie Lowenthal sought to fix it. The Governor waited around for a few months, then barged in and said Democrats, who were taking the steps to fix the problem, were safeguarding public employees, and that anti-fraud measures must be taken immediately in conjunction with an unrelated budget deficit.
The only fraud here is the Governor. He's tried to cut IHSS funding since the day he entered office. The Assembly passed a "quality assurance" provision in 2004 to ensure that the program ran smoothly, and the county investigations were kicked up to the state, and then the Governor NEVER FUNDED THE NEW POSITIONS for investigators to look over the county referrals. Small wonder a lot of cases with no action ensued.
In the final analysis, the Governor is doing what he has done multiple times in the past - attempting to cheat the needy out of lawful care and services instead of doing the politically unpalatable work of cutting programs. He'd rather reduce costs by making it virtually impossible for enrollees to stay eligible. It's cowardly and craven.
Dave Regan, executive vice-president of SEIU and appointed trustee of SEIU-UHW gave a speech last night to hundreds of SEIU organizers who have been shipped into Fresno from around the country.
Dave Regan is the public face of SEIU in Fresno County where 10,000 homecare workers are voting in an election to leave SEIU and join their own union, NUHW. Here's a sample of what SEIU's top spokesperson in Fresno had to say:
In his latest act of madness, Arnold is now proposing a five percent cut across the board for all state employees:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to propose a 5 percent across-the-board pay cut for state workers to save nearly $500 million in next year's budget, a spokesman said Thursday.(SacBee 5/28/09)
The thing is that these "across the board" cuts are simply lazy. Resources aren't as important in one place as they are another. That's why we don't simply grow or scale back the budget by a percentage each year. There are some programs that are more important than others.
At this point, it is imperative that progressives work to provide some visiblity for these crazy cuts. One such group who is doing that is SEIU, whose workers just wrapped up their 48-hour Sacramento vigil to avoid the drastic cuts in in-home support services (IHSS). Yesterday, I spoke to Eliseo Medina, about the situation here in California.
While it wasn't surprising to hear that this situation was really only different from other situations in other states by the willingness to work together by the governor, the bigger issue that grabbed my attention was the way the issue was sort of blown off. Before the May election, SEIU leaders had a sit-down with the Governor, and reached out to work together for solutions to the budget situation. But once the election passed, there was silence on the other end of the line. No word from the Governor or his nominally Democratic CoS Susan Kennedy. It was straight to the "cut to the bone rhetoric."
The thing about IHSS is that there really isn't a cost-efficient way to cut. Here are the alternatives:
1) Cut wages from $12 to minimum wage, $8. You lose a slew of IHSS workers to other service sector jobs, even in this economy. These people are generally reliable people, and that's always in demand. And when you get more money working at In 'N' Out, why do we expect the dedicated IHSS workers to stick around?
2) Cut service levels. Even at higher wages, IHSS care is far cheaper than nursing home care. Up to 4 times cheaper. So when the governor threatens to cut both per client services and service availability, what he is really saying is that these people should simply go to nursing homes.
Funny thing about this is that when they get on MediCal, because they will, the state simply ends up paying on the other end. Guess what, there are laws about what you can do to people. Under both California and federal laws, we have commitments to provide care. SEIU has already filed one lawsuit, and plans to bring another. When you are cutting into the bone, it's simply not as easy as Arnold would like to portray.
On the other hand, nothing is really easy these days. SEIU is also facing a fight with the former leaders of UHW who have created their own union, NUHW. NUHW recently won a local election in San Pablo and there's another election in Fresno.
Barack Obama visits California for a couple DNC fundraisers today. I doubt he'll have time to turn on the teevee. But if he does, he will be greeted with a new ad featuring Pauline Beck, the woman who Obama worked with in the SEIU's "Walk A Day In My Shoes" campaign during the Presidential primaries.
The ad is aimed mostly at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who mandated cuts to home health care worker pay, and got the federal government to sign off on them without impacting the flow of stimulus dollars. Basically, Schwarzenegger used the technicality that counties would not be responsible for backfilling worker pay, and therefore burdened with dealing with state cuts, because they always have the option of just cutting the workers completely. It's just another example of the Governor thinking that the message of "the people" is to place the entire burden of the budget deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable members of society.
But a new print ad running in today's LA Times actually addresses Obama directly over the issue.
Dear Mr. President,
I am Pauline Beck - the California home care worker you spent a day on the job with in August 2007. You helped me provide care to Mr. John Thornton, an 86-year old man in a wheelchair who is able to stay in his home because of the care I provide.
I know you are very busy, but Mr. John and I, and my fellow home care workers and their clients, need your help.
You see, Governor Schwarzenegger wants to cut my pay back to $8 an hour. These are tough times, but if my pay gets cut to minimum wage I won't be able to support my family. It's just wrong to pay us so little for taking care of people who have given our communities and our country so much...
I know you are a good man and I am proud of the job you are doing. I hope you and the Governor can work together to help Mr. John, me and the 750,000 of Californians just like us. It would make such a difference in our lives. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Pauline Beck
SEIU is right to personalize this crisis and take on the Governor and the political leadership. The President ought to know about how California is seeking to reverse his stimulus package by slashing the salaries and services of those most able to contribute quickly to the economy, forestalling recovery.
...incidentally, at this link you can write a message to the Governor about these home health care worker cuts.
UPDATE by Brian: I was going to write about the 48-hour vigil that SEIU workers are engaging in right now, but it fits with Dave's post quite well. Beginning yesterday at around noon, homecare workers have been set up at Capitol Park to protest wage and service cuts. They'll be testifying about the very real pain these proposed cuts will cause.
SEIU has been focusing on the fact that there was a billion dollar plus corporate tax cut despite the budget mess, and they'll be hitting that note in a number of protests tomorrow.
When Obama was running as a Presidential candidate in 2007 he spent a few hours working with a home health care worker in Alameda, 61 year old Pauline Beck. Remember, this woman had a union contract:
While Beck's life - struggling to make ends meet with two jobs and regular visits to the food bank - couldn't be more different than the 46-year-old Democratic presidential candidate's, she came away feeling "he just cares about people. ... He wanted to know about me, yes, he did. He really wanted to feel what I did."
I wonder how Pauline Beck feels about the Obama administration helping cut her wage from $12.10 an hour to $10.10 an hour. I guess she can get a third job.
Actually, according to Andy Stern, Pauline and IHSS workers like her will get cut back to $8 an hour. Several bigger bloggers and national groups are picking up on this story today. As Greg Sargent notes, Pauline Beck even spoke at the 2008 DNC. There's video of the then-candidate's visit with Pauline Beck.
Sargent confirms with SEIU that Beck would be hit by this reduction in wages, just two years after Barack Obama walked a day in her shoes. The Administration could have used the power of the purse - and the threat of pulling stimulus money away from California - to get the Governor to back off on these wage reductions. Instead, they acquiesced, and Pauline Beck, Obama's former work buddy, will pay the price.
Brian Beutler of TPMDC has more on this, and Andy Stern has sent a message to his supporters asking them to call the Governor and stop the cuts, although the President is implicated in his message as well.
Two years ago, President Barack Obama walked a day in the shoes of SEIU home care worker Pauline Beck.
Today, Pauline and home care workers across California face pay cuts of up to 33% -- from $12.10 an hour down to $8.
Governor Schwarzenegger's belief that solving the state's fiscal problems on the backs of those who take care of the most fragile among us is an absolute disgrace.
Please call the Governor's office and tell him you strongly disagree with his misguided priorities:
916-445-2841
Earlier this week, Californians sent a clear message of no confidence in Governor Schwarzenegger -- soundly rejecting his proposed budget reforms.
He proposed four ballot initiatives, and all four went down to overwhelming defeats.
The L.A. Times noted that some are beginning to write his "political obituary."
It's no wonder why.
Stern intimates that he will "file a challenge" against the Govenror's decision. Maybe Schwarzenegger needs to walk a day in the shoes of these home health care workers- oh, wait, that didn't work either.
Arnold Twitters in that he got "permission" to enact the budget cuts on home health care workers and still qualify for all federal stimulus money in the health care sector. Cap Weekly has more.
The state of California has received permission from the federal government to cut wages of home healthcare workers without fear of losing federal stimulus dollars.
The ruling comes as a victory for the Schwarzenegger administration, and a defeat for the Service Employees International Union which had sought federal intervention to stop the cuts.
Cuts in home healthcare worker pay were part of the budget solution passed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders in February. As part of his May budget revision, Schwarzenegger has proposed further cuts for in-home support workers. The Legislature cut IHSS worker pay by $2 per hour, lowering wages from $12.10 to $10.10 per hour. The cuts saved the state an estimated $74 million.
It's important to note that, while these cuts suck and will really hurt IHSS workers, they are relatively minor compared to the cuts in health care and education Schwarzenegger wants to enact, while still qualifying for stimulus money. So the Administration can still wield some power here. But obviously this is a bad sign. The Governor should not be allowed to essentially reverse the effect of the stimulus on his own. In fact, he ought to just resign.
Schwarzenegger said he received the voters' message "loud and clear: an overwhelming majority of people told Sacramento, 'Go and do your work yourself, don't come to us with your problems...."
"The message was clear from the people, go all out and make those cuts and live within your means," he said.
Voters were so worked up, in fact, that they turned out in the lowest numbers in state history, and they voted down the same borrowing gimmicks and spending cuts for successful programs that will now compose the Governor's agenda. Let me suggest that I don't believe in his message-taking ability.
Marc Cooper actually has a decent column on Arnold's total failure.
