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Juvenile Justice Program :: Reports

Reports | About The Juvenile Justice Program

California Budget Progress Report:

California Budget Still Bogged Down In Partisan Debate: No Dire Threat Yet to State-Funded Youth Crime and Violence Prevention Programs, But No Program Is Secure In This Atmosphere

by David Steinhart (7/2/03)

Having missed the July 1st constitutional deadline for adoption of a 2003/04 budget, lawmakers remain deeply divided on partisan lines over tax and spending policies. While rumors of compromise surface each day, there is no clear sign that Republicans and Democrats are finally ready to discard their ideological armor and settle their differences.

For those interested in the fate of youth crime and violence prevention programs, little has changed since the Governor proposed to continue them at prior-year levels in his May, 2003 Budget Revision. The May Revision proposed $ 116 million in state General Funds for the Schiff-Cardenas Crime Prevention Act, $ 121.6 million for Before- and After-School programs and $ 72 million for school safety programs. Revenue enhancements-including a sales tax boost, higher vehicle license fees, and other tax hikes-gave the Governor a foundation for maintaining state funds for these and other programs.

Republicans, fortified by progress in the petition campaign to recall Governor Gray Davis, have refused to go along with any tax increases, instead calling for deeper spending cuts. Six Republican votes are needed in the Assembly, and two in the Senate, to obtain the 2/3 majority required for adoption of the state budget. In the Senate, Republican leader Jim Brulte (R.- Cucamonga) has threatened Republican colleagues who support tax increases with campaigns to keep them from being re-elected.

So far, there has been no frontal assault on Schiff-Cardenas crime prevention funds, partly because they are linked by legislative formula to popular law enforcement ("COPS") funds that go to counties for police and sheriff salaries. But the picture is changing every day now. Yesterday, Assembly Republicans offered a new plan to cut state spending, including proposals to reduce the number of children eligible for "Healthy Families" medical services and to defer the starting age for kindergarten by a year. Democrats have not flocked to support this plan.

"Gridlock" and "paralysis" are descriptions used frequently now in the press to describe the budget situation in Sacramento. If budget deals are not cut quickly, state-funded programs and employees will begin to see their paychecks stop. Local programs funded through the Schiff-Cardenas Crime Prevention Act are not threatened with immediate shutdown, since they are funded prospectively for the budget year and have local matching funds to sustain them. The big question-and one that cannot be answered at this time-is whether these public safety and anti-crime programs will still have state funding when the smoke clears from what is now a smoldering Capitol stalemate.