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California Budget Bulletin
January 11, 2008
Governor's FY 08/09 Budget Proposes Cuts In Juvenile Justice Programs
by David Steinhart
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This morning California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released his January Budget Proposal for FY 08-09. Facing a projected $ 14 billion deficit, the Governor for the most part delivered on his pledge to cut state-funded programs across the board by 10 percent. The Governor has suspended the "Proposition 98" guarantee for education funds and has proposed significant reductions in school spending and in a broad range of social service programs including $1 billion in Medi-Cal cuts. Big savings in the corrections budget would result from the proposed early release of more than 22,000 non-violent state prison inmates and from a layoff of more than 6,000 state corrections employees over the next two years.
For juvenile justice programs, the Governor's budget proposal is a mixed bag of cuts and protected funds as highlighted below, for Fiscal Year 2008-09:
Major proposed cuts include:
- Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention ACT (JJCPA)/ Citizens Options for Public Safety (COPS): down 10% to $214 million from last year's $ 238 million (combined).
- Juvenile Probation Camp and Ranch funds: down 10% to $181 million from $ 201 million
- Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction (MIOCR) Grants: cut by $4.5 million (combined juvenile and adult program grants)
- After School Education and Safety Act (Proposition 49): cut by $59.6 million, to $ 487.4 million from $ 547 million last year.
Some juvenile justice programs and related departmental budgets were specifically exempted from the proposed cuts, including:
- SB 81 Youthful Offender Block Grant Funds (Juvenile Justice Realignment funds) payable to counties for non 707 (b) wards. Protected and proposed at $ 66 million for FY 08-09, up from $ 24 million last year.
- The Governor's Budget states that both the Division of Juvenile Justice and the Corrections Standards Authority were exempted from his all-department budget cut target for FY 08-09. There were minor augmentations in proposed appropriations to pay for additional litigation costs in Farrell v. Tilton (DJJ facilities, $ 4.5 million) and LH v. Schwarzenegger (juvenile parole revocation hearing rights, $ 2.9 million).
We will provide more details on the Governor's budget as they become available.